EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND MORAL THEORY:

A KANTIAN APPROACH

By

Diane M. Williamson

Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty of the

Graduate School of Vanderbilt University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in

Philosophy

August, 2009

Nashville, Tennessee

Approved:

Professor Jeffrey Tlumak

Gregg M. Horowitz

Kelly Oliver

Elaine P. Miller

Copyright © 2009 by Diane M. Williamson All Rights Reserved

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the generous financial support provided to me by the

Philosophy Department and the Graduate School at Vanderbilt University. Alan and Kendall

Berry’s generous endowment to the Vanderbilt Philosophy Department enriched this project in a

number of ways. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) supported my study of

German.

In addition to providing the majority of the financial resources necessary to complete this

project, my husband, Paul Hagenloh, has been my academic model. Jeffrey Tlumak, my advisor,

who exemplifies intellectual virtue, has given altruistically to my education and supported my

personal well being from my very first semester at Vanderbilt. Gregg Horowitz, Kelly Oliver,

and Elaine Miller generously devoted their time to improving this work through their comments

and criticisms. This project hopefully marks the beginning of the giving back necessary to fulfill

the expectations created by all that I have been given.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iii

INTRODUCTION: BEING JUDGMENTAL ................................................................................ 1

CHAPTER I: WHAT IS AN EMOTION? ................................................................................... 11

I. Cognitive and Affective Theories.......................................................................................... 13 II. A Synthesis........................................................................................................................... 30 III. Evaluating Emotions........................................................................................................... 46

CHAPTER II: THE MORAL IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE................ 62

I: Heterogeneity Amongst Definitions of Emotional Intelligence............................................ 65 II: Evaluating Theories of Emotional Intelligence.................................................................... 74 III: Summary of A Good, Working Definition of Emotional Intelligence ............................... 98 IV: The Connection Between Emotional Intelligence and Morality ...................................... 104

CHAPTER III: KANT’S THEORY OF EMOTION.................................................................. 113

I. The Problem with Emotion.................................................................................................. 114 II. The Problem with Passion.................................................................................................. 119 III. The Problem with Sympathy ............................................................................................ 124 IV. Kant’s Theory of Emotion, Take Two: The Virtuous Feelings........................................ 131 V. Kant’s Cognitive Theory of Emotion................................................................................. 152 VI. Kant’s Theory of Emotional Intelligence ......................................................................... 160

CHAPTER IV: KANTIAN MORAL THEORY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE........ 171

I. Cognitivism: Self-Scrutiny and Self-Esteem....................................................................... 173 II. Moral and Emotional Transparency; Moral and Emotional Universalism ........................ 190 III. Overcoming Selfishness; Achieving Emotional Egalitarianism and Respect .................. 204 IV. Pure Practical Reason: The Integration of Emotion and Reason...................................... 211

CHAPTER V: THE CONTENT OF KANTIAN “FORMALISM” ........................................... 228

I. What Does “Formalism” Mean?.......................................................................................... 230 II. The Formalism of Necessary Ends..................................................................................... 240 III. “Man Should Not Follow His Inclinations”...................................................................... 248 IV. The Good Will Wills The Good ....................................................................................... 256

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CHAPTER VI: AUTONOMY AND PSYCHOLOGY .............................................................. 261

I. The Principle of Autonomy and the Categorical Imperative............................................... 262 II. Autonomy and the “True Self”........................................................................................... 267 III. Autonomy as Practical Reason ......................................................................................... 272 V. Autonomy Without Freedom ............................................................................................. 284

BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................... 292

References to Kant’s Works ................................................................................................... 292 Primary and Secondary Sources ............................................................................................. 293

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INTRODUCTION

BEING JUDGMENTAL

This project examines the role that emotions can and should play in morality and moral

theory. I examine the popular notion of emotional intelligence and argue that it converges on the

moral notion of virtue. In some ways emotional intelligence and virtue are the same thing; in

other ways, either can be shown to be a prerequisite for the other. Of course, the ultimate

formulation of the relationship will depend on the definition we give to emotion. If we see all of

our experiences as being emotional, then we will see emotional intelligence and virtue as the

same thing; if we believe that only a subset of our experiences count as emotional, then only a

part of virtue has to do with emotional intelligence. Either way, I show that the value of

emotional intelligence is morally based, if we understand morality in its properly expansive

sense.

Although Kantian moral theory is thought to be not so expansive, limited to a rights-

based rather than virtue-based approach, I show that Kant’s theory of virtue illuminates the

connections between morality and emotional intelligence. Most people are coming to accept that

the standard interpretation of Kantian moral theory is mistaken. I give more evidence to tip the

scales, showing that Kant goes some distance toward giving us a fruitful theory of emotional

intelligence.

This dissertation explores the ways that being a good person overlaps with having

psychological/mental health. Although most people immediately assent that there is such an

overlap, the specificities of this relationship are not often discussed. Part of this neglect might

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come from the distance between the two disciplines. When moral theory and psychology do

overlap, as with moral psychology, the endeavor is assumed to be empirical rather than

prescriptive. Still, I think that we must confront some degree of resistance when attempting to

make psychology prescriptive. In fact, it might be the case that psychological normativity offers

a cover for moral normativity because we often do not feel comfortable acknowledging our own

moral judgments. Moral discourse, and the inevitable disagreements that it threatens, is

necessarily challenging. Indeed, part of the goal of this project is to convince the reader that

taking oneself and one’s moral judgments seriously, in a way that is respectful to oneself and to

others, is necessary for one’s psychological well-being. We must have courage in challenging the

status quo, whether it be calling attention to the feelings of an individual or attempting to

convince people to make different choices. Courage is needed in our culture of polite relativism,

where most moral judgments are offered cautiously, if at all, and peppered with qualifiers like

“for me” and “I feel.” Courage, an emotionally intelligent behavior, is necessary for being

judgmental in a way that affirms the worth of those judgments and ourselves.

I voice this call for courage early on because I suspect that this resistance to being

judgmental has stunted the philosophy and psychology of emotion.1 In discussing the

relationship between morality and emotion, I go beyond the idea that emotions either simply

inform or impede moral thinking. I consider both the moral evaluation of emotions and the role

that emotions play in moral discourse, i.e., the emotionality of morality. Many theorists currently

interested in the ways that emotions inform moral thinking (Damasio and Nussbaum, to name the

two most high-profile examples) do not devote much consideration to the obvious ways that we

should and do evaluate our emotions. Instead, philosophy and psychology are currently pre-

1 I find it very telling that Robinson chooses to call cognitive theory of emotion “judgmentalist” theories. Jenefer Robinson, “Startle,” Journal of Philosophy 92, no. 2 (1995): 53-57.

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occupied by the simple idea that emotions are good. These projects are partly polemical, aiming

at overcoming what they take to be the deficiencies of Western (and, I might add, Eastern)

thought. Western philosophy is thought to pit reason against emotion, and to maintain that the

former is good and the latter is bad. To argue that the emotions are good is thought to be a

radical stance that requires gesturing back to a forgotten past (ancient Greece) or a censored

philosopher (Spinoza). To be fair, Damasio and Nussbaum do not deny that some emotions have

content that changes with reflection; but they choose not to focus on what they take to be only

one type of emotions. I do not deny that some emotions are intelligent in the sense that they

provide intuitive knowledge that surpasses explicit knowledge. Instead, I focus on the

relationship between those experiences that are thought to be emotional and those experiences

that are thought to be rational, and I show that neither is more likely to be “ready to use” on its

own terms. Both reason and emotion call for moral reflection.

We must not only push our theories of emotion to engage with theories of reflective

moral judgment; we must push our theories of reflective moral judgment to take up the topic of

emotion in an emotionally sensitive way. Unfortunately, much of the philosophical discipline

that goes by the term “ethics” has, ironically, become abstract and disconnected from the

improvement of real lives. Ethics focuses too much on paradoxes and dilemmas rather than the

moral presence of the everyday. The question “what should I do?” becomes “what should one

do?” and the sense of urgency is lost.2 Even “applied ethics” is doomed from the start insofar as

it assumes that ethics is something that either may or may not be “applied.” In order to get ethics

off the ground, or to get it on the ground, we must assume that people have some kind of natural

2 This evasion is evinced by the fact that there is thought to be such a thing as “meta-ethics” at all: questions about the questions of morality can only be construed as being on a different level if they are taken to be for some other purpose than answering the original questions, but if the original questions are already relaxed and hypothetical, then we can multiply levels of questions as many times as we like. Otherwise meta-ethical questions are simply more in-depth ethical questions.

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ethical abilities. A moral sense need not be fixed and limiting, but rather the natural moral sense

we bring to moral discourse is exactly the personal orientation and personal experience that is

itself the content of the discussion. In other words, we must see that there is already, in principle,

a unity between particularity and universality. (Both the method of reflective equilibrium and the

theory of practical reason mean to express this fact.3) Personal experience is not only an

acceptable arena of ethical decision-making; it is the only arena of ethical decision-making.

In merging psychology and moral theory—making a normative moral psychology—I do

not mean to follow the tradition of moral sense theory or emotivism. My project can be

understood through a contrast with Prinz’s Humean tri-partite approach to philosophy, with what

he takes to be an affective theory of emotion and its foundation for moral sense theory. In fact, as

we shall see, Kant’s rejection of moral sense theory is at the heart of his theory of emotion and

his ethics. In general, moral sense theory, which I (and Hume) take to be the reduction of moral

theory to psychology, has regained popularity. No matter how hard we try, we seem to fall

continually into the common prejudice that emotions are one type of thing and moral judgments

are another. But we have emotions because we have certain thoughts, beliefs, theories,

prejudices, and assumptions. Similarly, we have certain thoughts and theories because we have

certain emotions and emotional habits. Both are revisable and yet natural. Both should be subject

to evaluation.

The ideas that motivate this dissertation might be subsumed under the idea of character or

virtue, as these concepts unite moral rectitude and psychological health. Yet previous theories of

character and virtue have not seriously considered the extent to which the analysis and working

3 See Elijah Millgram, Ethics Done Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

5

through of emotions is necessary for the cultivation of virtue.4 A moral theory that does not

engage in psychology and the analysis of emotion leaves us in the dark about the moral nature of

the majority of our moral lives. For Aristotle the rational and the irrational parts of the soul

should have the relationship of master and slave or parent and child. This project, on the

contrary, is interested specifically in the ways that the emotions are themselves intelligent.

Furthermore, the idea that a virtuous person comes about by being brought up in a good state is

completely useless to us, not because we find ourselves in corrupt political environments but

because it is simply not true. We no longer believe that the intellectuals must command the

manual laborers and army or that the soul must control desire and appetite; even if we did, we do

not believe that having good laws is sufficient to induce virtue, nor do we think they should be.

Virtue ethics is a good start, but if virtue is taken to simply mean “the correct habits,” without

telling us how we know they are correct or how we go about getting them, then virtue ethics does

not rise the level of normative ethics at all.

Instead, I take the meeting point between an emotionally sensitive moral theory and a

morally informed philosophy of emotion to be the notion of emotional intelligence. My argument

is that emotional and moral experience are analytically united: a consideration of emotion leads

to a theory of emotional intelligence, and an analysis of theories of emotional intelligence leads

to moral theory.

In chapter 1, I argue that emotions are a part of subjective processes of reflection and

learning. I seek to transcend the ossified debate in the philosophy of emotion that seeks to

4 The point of the doctrine of the mean, according to Young, is that virtue should not be understood as being opposed to vice since there are two corresponding vices to every virtue. Charles M. Young, “The Doctrine of the Mean,” Topoi 15, no. 1 (1996): 89-99. Annas argues that, other than this point, there is very little content to this idea that is not tautological, i.e., to hit the mean is just to do the right amount, especially since sometimes, what appears to be an excessive amount, is proper. Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 61.

6

determine whether emotions are affects or judgments. The philosophy of emotion is largely pre-

occupied by the question “What is an emotion?” but has lost sight of the reasons that this

questions matters, as well as the reasons that it does not. I argue that the affective-cognitive

debate is itself largely illusory, but the implicit tendency to argue that the emotions should either

be praised or blamed continues to motivate it. Emotions, and the breadth of emotional

experiences, are more complex than either of these dichotomies allow. Emotions are an integral

part of, not just the objects of, moral theory.

Any consideration of the nature of emotions inevitably leads to the idea of emotional

intelligence, which is explored and defined in chapter 2. This chapter also serves to introduce

those working in the philosophy of emotion to the literature on emotional intelligence, with

which they are usually unfamiliar, to the effect that the question “What is an emotion?” might be

rejoined with a consideration of its practical implications. After surveying existing theories of

emotional intelligence, I provisionally define emotional intelligence as the analysis and better

understanding of one’s own emotions for the sake of acting on and expressing them. These

expressions and actions must also be tied to good outcomes and psychological well-being.

Emotional intelligence also involves understanding and discussing the emotions of others in the

same pursuit and, additionally, creating an emotionally open and healthy environment that

promotes emotional intelligence for all, but we shall see that, contrary to appearances, the

emotional health of others is not a separate component of emotional intelligence since, in this

respect at least, there is a deep symmetry between the self and others, as Kantian moral theory

helps to explain. Resisting the tradition of intelligence studies, my definition highlights

behaviors, rather than purported latent abilities, that we can call emotionally intelligent. The

notion of emotional intelligence provides a bridge between the philosophy of emotion and moral

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theory, because emotional experience is itself self-evaluative and seeks advice about which ways

of experiencing emotions are better than others. The notion of emotional intelligence provides

this advice, but it must itself be grounded in moral theory, since emotional questions are often

moral questions.

Chapter 3 begins the engagement with Kant that promises to fill the gaps left by current

psychological consideration of emotional intelligence. In order to couple the philosophy of

emotion with Kantianism—two topics that have been previously adversarial—I explicate Kant’s

theory of emotion, which is often misunderstood due to a confusion of terms. Kant holds a

cognitive theory of emotion; I argue that he goes some distance in articulating a successful

theory of emotional intelligence, a fact that is often overlooked because consideration of Kant’s

theory of emotion is often limited to his comments about affects.

There are a number of reasons that Kant has earned a bad reputation. First, scholars have

failed to take seriously the Metaphysics of Morals, which provides a more mature and well-

rounded version of Kant’s moral theory. (Surprisingly, even when people do read the

Metaphysics of Morals, they give all of their attention to the “Doctrine of Right,” even though

Kant specifically states that virtue is the realm of ethics proper and right is merely the sphere of

legality.) Second, Kant’s comments about sympathy in the Groundwork are polemical and lead

him into trouble. Still, most of the criticism he faces is not the product of a generous reading but

instead part of the need to quickly dispense with opposing theories. Kant’s tendency to write

architectonically and expound di- and tri-chotomies, especially in the first two Critiques, makes

him an easy target. Third, Kant’s theory of emotion is amazingly complex, infused both with

psychological insight and many latent psychological ideas; it is intricately connected to his moral

theory as well. There has simply not been enough interpretive effort directed at providing

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anything more than a stereotyped account of Kant’s theory of emotion. Ultimately, chapter 3

argues that Kant believes that we have a moral duty to reflect on our emotions for the sake of

better understanding them and better fulfilling the emotional needs of ourselves and others.

Chapter 4 goes beyond mere injunction and uses Kantian moral theory to demonstrate the

ways that this moral/emotional engagement should occur. The first section of the chapter

considers the emphasis Kant places on self-scrutiny and shows that it is a pre-requisite for

emotional intelligence: we must know our motivations in order to understand our emotions and

to develop virtue. This discussion leads to an analysis of Kant’s theory of self-esteem, as I argue

that self-scrutiny and moral concern do not amount to neurosis, as some might fear, but help us

to be happier. Any theory of self-esteem that psychologists take up must, like Kant’s, be morally

informed; otherwise it will be groundless. The second section contains a theory of emotional

universalism, showing that we must morally evaluate our emotions but that doing so does not

amount to eradicating particularity. The third section takes up the topic of respect as it applies

both to morality and emotional experience. Respect is not just a negative constraint, but a part of

the duty to promote the happiness of others. Empathy, which is a part of emotional intelligence,

as well as learning to seriously engage difference, are necessary components of respect. The

fourth section considers the ways that moral reason is subjectively integrating and hence

therapeutic. Psychological benefit comes not just from rational reflection, but, more correctly,

truly moral reflection.

Chapters 5 and 6 address Kant’s critics, including some of the mistaken interpretations

that have precluded an understanding of the emotional dimension of his moral theory. I reject

those interpretations that appear most natural (as in chapter 5, wherein I argue that it does not

make sense to call Kant’s moral theory “formal” even though he does so himself). I argue that

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Kant’s notion of purity is based on a confused and unsuccessful application of an idea from his

theoretical philosophy to his practical philosophy. I also argue that his notion of autonomy

should be understood in terms of universality, and I criticize it for reinscribing a psychologically

problematic model of subjectivity. These interpretive amputations are not only useful for my

project; they help Kant’s theory itself to be more coherent. Although a possible objection is that

“creative” interpretations are always less successful than the original itself, I show that in both

cases Kant’s theory reaches a juncture at which we must privilege some parts of the text over

others. The more faithfully we follow the text, the more we are forced to reject parts of it.

Within the legacy of Kantianism we have those who are working to show that morality

amounts to psychological health. These types of theories—I am not sure whether to call them

moral theories or theories about morality, i.e., moral psychology5—offer an answer to the

question “Why be moral?” Unfortunately, in making the argument that morality simply is good

reasoning, they fall prey not only to moral corruption (a problem that is always on Kant’s mind);

they also overlook that which is particular about moral reasoning, viz. the categorical imperative.

I provide a close reading of what I take to be some of the most important aspects of Kantian

moral theory, not so that I can claim some kind of privileged historical lineage, but because I

believe that Kant, for the most part, is right. Sadly, I have heard the history of philosophy

compared to the history of science, which is to imply that both are largely obsolete. Such is a

spurious parallel not only because the majority of Americans remain in the Medieval period, but

also because the history of philosophy is not over. As we shall see, one very one-sided reading of

Kant is at the heart of our culture’s current misunderstanding of emotional intelligence and the

5 For example, J. David Velleman, Self to Self: Selected Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); David Schmidtz, Rational Choice and Moral Agency (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

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relativistic denial of its moral importance. It is in returning to Kant—setting the record straight,

as it were—that we can form a new model for virtue, one that does justice to emotion.

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CHAPTER I

WHAT IS AN EMOTION?

Many who study emotion believe that they must first define it; yet defining “emotion” is

not as necessary for productive discussion as one might think. Furthermore, defining “emotion”

risks arbitrarily limiting and skewing our discussion, as well as taking emotions out of the mental

and social contexts necessary to understand them. We shall see that more expansive discussions

illuminate attempts to isolate and exclude a special class of phenomenon, even though the latter

come off as more “scientific.” Currently the philosophical study of emotion is engaged in a

debate over the definition of emotion, but this debate is more a product of differing goals of

study rather than a real disagreement over subjective phenomena, which are themselves

extremely varied. Rather the implication is that some things should or should not count as

“emotions.” Should purely automatic, physical responses, such as the startle reflex, count as an

emotion? Should relatively abstract preoccupations of thought count as emotions? I argue that

the relative role that cognition and affect should play in the definition of “emotion” is not really

what is at stake in this debate. Affective and cognitive theories should be seen as differing

mostly in terms of the perspective they take, as cognitive theories tend to be more introspective,

and affective theories take up a biological, third-person perspective for the sake of speculating

about environmental adaptations rather than therapeutically altering the subject.

In the first section of this chapter I discuss the affective/cognitive debate in the hopes of

overcoming it. I do this by situating each position in the practical context of the individual’s

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response to his or her emotions and the implicit moral evaluation of emotion. This gestalt shift

involved in employing the pragmatic maxim helps us to see what is at stake in adopting either

approach and to sympathize with both sets of motivations. When we reframe the debate this way,

it becomes evident that, if there is a real disagreement, it is between the more Romantic view that

emotions should largely be heeded and a more Rationalist view that emotions are often flawed.

My insistence on connecting the philosophy of emotion to moral evaluation should not be

surprising, since emotions have always been seen as somehow related to morality. Recent work

in the philosophy of emotion largely sides with the Romantic view and expresses this

relationship between emotion and morality with the idea that emotions are themselves moral

evaluations. The second section of this chapter summarizes the most prevalent contemporary

attempts to link emotion and moral theory, not only by means of the idea that emotions give us

information about value, but also via moral subjectivism and moral sense theory. I argue that

these attempts are insufficient because they fail to grasp that emotions are not fixed, pre-

theoretical evaluations but are themselves informed by moral thinking.

The third section begins to develop the theory of emotion that motivates the rest of the

dissertation. While I take up the cognitive approach’s focus on reflection and self-criticism, my

goal is to overcome the cognitive legacy of Stoicism—the assertion that emotional judgments are

always false—along with the idea that emotions are always true. Furthermore, calling emotions

judgments, while partly illuminative, gives the false impression that emotions are fully self-

transparent, with relatively fixed boundaries. That the majority of emotional judgments are

largely unconscious—a thesis that most philosophers of emotion accept, although for different

reasons—casts doubt on this assumption. Instead, it is necessary to view emotions as processes

of feelings and thoughts working together toward the impossible goal of self-understanding. I

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consider the ways that emotions are involved in subjective processes of expression and re-

integration that aim at understanding and improving the whole self. If we are to truly understand

the role that emotions play in our lives, we must account for the entire psychological context of

the emotional experience. I tend toward inclusivity in my discussion of emotion, resisting the

tendency to identify emotions with only a “part” of the self (cognition, affect, or desire)—indeed,

resisting the tendency to think in terms of “parts” of the self at all. Emotions are interesting

exactly because they reside at the intersection between the mind and the body, the space where

the mind and the body overlap. They show the way that thoughts affect feeling and feeling

affects thought. If we do continue to assume along with common parlance and folk psychology

that emotion and reason are sufficiently different processes, approaching emotions in this holistic

way demonstrates the ways that emotions and reasons are, nonetheless, integrally related. Given

the integration between reason and emotion, and that emotions track the most important themes

in our relationship to ourselves and our relationships with others, experiencing them calls on

rationalist moral theory. This is one of the over-arching themes of this dissertation: that

rationalist (Kantian) moral theory is internal to the experience of emotion.

I. Cognitive and Affective Theories

Beginning a work on the role that emotional intelligence should play in moral theory with

an orientation in the history of the philosophy of emotion serves to remind us that the topic of

psychological self-improvement has not always been relegated to the anti-academic realm of the

self-help genre. Nor was the study of virtue (and the science of self-improvement) classically an

exclusively theoretical affair; in classical ethical texts, the study of virtue is always connected

directly to pedagogy and the concrete pursuit of improving real people. The pursuit of virtue is

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central to the pursuit of philosophy, and virtue, regardless of the theory, is always described as

some form of emotional comportment. Whether it is said to be unemotional reason or the ecstatic

overflowing of positive emotions, the topic of virtue involves emotion. The way that one answers

the question of the relationship between virtue and emotion depends on the definition that one

gives to “emotion” and the correlative definition that one gives to reason.

A survey of the history of the philosophy of emotion usually results in its summary in

terms of the division between cognitive and affective theories of emotion. Roughly speaking,

cognitive theories hold that emotions are cognitions; affective theories hold that emotions are

affects. We might also remark that there can be as many different types of theories of emotion as

there are seen to be parts or faculties of the mind. So, for example, we can also say that there are

conative theories of emotion, i.e., theories that hold that emotions are desires (or states of action

readiness). This fact about classifying theories of emotion already demonstrates something

fundamental about emotions: even though they may be related to one part of the mind more than

others, they can be seen as related to all parts of the mind.1

Aristotle and the Stoics are taken as forerunners of the cognitive theory of emotion

because Aristotle held that the emotions are based on beliefs and the Stoics held that the

emotions are (nothing but) judgments. The Stoic theory of emotion is simpler than Aristotle’s,

and there is more reason for calling it a cognitive theory.2

An Aristotelian theory of emotion comes mostly from the Rhetoric and the

Nichomachean Ethics. In the former, Aristotle outlines the situations (both subjective and

1 Prinz cleverly constructs a table to illustrate this, putting the “emotion episode component” alongside the theory of emotion that takes it as its paradigm: conscious experiences; feeling theories, change in body and face; somatic theories, action tendencies; behavioral theories, modulations of cognitive processes; processing mode theories, thoughts; pure cognitive theories. Jesse J. Prinz, Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 10. One might argue that even this list is incomplete. 2 For an argument that Aristotle’s theory does represent purely cognitive theory and that it is comprehensively constructed, see chapter 1 of W. W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1975).

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objective) that tend to cause certain emotions. His emphasis is on teaching lawyers to sway

jurors in ways conducive to their case. His discussion demonstrates that emotions are stirred by

beliefs.3 Drawing from Aristotle’s discussion of emotion in the Rhetoric, Cooper argues that, for

Aristotle, emotions involve three elements: a feeling that is either pleasurable or painful (or

both); beliefs that arise “from ways events or conditions strike the one affected,” and a “desire

for a specific range of reactive behaviors or other changes in the situation.”4 This definition of an

emotion combines aspects from the affective, cognitive, and conative orientations of the mind.5

Still, it is not clear from the Rhetoric whether beliefs operate a force over emotions or whether

emotions operate force over beliefs. Aristotle writes: “Emotions are things through which, being

turned around, people change in their judgments” (1378a 24-27). Perhaps the mutual causality

between belief and emotion indicates a deeper-level identity.

A quick review of Aristotle’s ethics will remind us that he believes that the emotions are

in some ways susceptible to discursive reason and in some ways not.6 The Nichomachen Ethics

3 The context in which we find the lion’s share of Aristotle’s discussion of emotion (pathos) is particularly significant and is mostly responsible for the fact that Aristotle is thought to have a cognitive theory of emotion. The goal of the Rhetoric is to teach lawyers how to sway jurors. It is no surprise that an “Aristotelian” theory of emotion holds that emotions are beliefs that are based on some kind of evidence: the giving of evidence is the only means a lawyer has of stirring emotions. Furthermore, jurors are in a position to judge a defendant, although not to actually interact with the defendant. It is no coincidence that Aristotle’s discussion of emotion portrays emotions as dispositions to actions, such as the disposition to help another with no benefit to oneself (charis), that are disconnected from the actions themselves: one can feel charis (or gratitude) toward a person without doing anything about it. See David Konstan, “The Emotion in Aristotle Rhetoric 2.7: Gratitude, not Kindness,” in Influences on Peripatetic Rhetoric: Essays in Honor of William W. Fortenbaugh, ed. David C. Mirhady (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007), for an argument that charis should be translated as gratitude.) It is possible that the problem in translating this term comes from exactly the point about context to which I refer, namely the fact that charis is an emotion that is normally connected to some action (as is grace, or gratis) but is disconnected from its action in this context.) The juror is in a position to act regarding the defendant, but in a way that is removed from a direct relationship. 4 John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 422. Note that this three-part description is similar to Dewey’s, but Dewey focuses on the consciousness of the feeling rather than the consciousness of the situation that leads to the feeling. John Dewey, “The Theory of Emotion. (2) The Significance of Emotions,” Psychological Review 2 (1985): 13-32. 5 Aristotle also considers one way that emotions relate to desires: anger is usually the result of a frustrated desire, and so one is “carried along by his own anger by the emotion [the desire] he is already feeling.” (1379a13). 6 Cooper argues that Aristotle’s account of a long list of emotions in the Rhetoric is merely a “dialectic investigation” meant to prepare the way for a “scientific” theory, and not such a theory itself. Cooper, Reason and Emotion, chapter 19.

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paints virtue as a type of pre-rational emotional disposition. Aristotle states that the virtuous

person feels pleasure and pain at the right things; this is the difference between virtue and mere

continence that Annas has accused Kant of missing.7 Aristotle’s tripartite theory of the soul holds

that emotions originate in the non-rational soul and must be educated by reason. This picture of

the soul makes us question whether or not we should attribute a cognitive theory of emotion to

Aristotle, since, on this model, emotions are usually non-rational desires.8 The very fact that

Aristotle holds that emotions are susceptible to rational argumentation and evidence makes us

wonder why he places them in the non-rational/animalistic soul in the first place. Nevertheless,

his account of akrasia rejects Plato’s assumption that total rational convincing of the passions is

possible. As with all Ancient and Hellenistic theories of virtue, Aristotle sees virtue as a process

of self-training. Emotional training is direct in the cases wherein the emotions are susceptible to

reason, and it is indirect in the cases wherein the emotions are not susceptible to reason.

Furthermore, the latter kind of training (behavioral training), which must occur continuously

through proper influence and practice from infancy on, is the foundation for the former kind. In

other words, the emotions can only become susceptible to reason if the person has already

reached a certain level of intelligence and virtue, which are predicated on understanding through

example.

Stoicism, which is arguably the most important historical source for our contemporary

approach to emotions.9 The Stoics present the most extreme form of a cognitive theory of

7 Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 8 Sokolon’s argument that Aristotle believes that emotions can also sometimes be rational is based on a confusion between irrational and non-rational (19). Something that does not originate from reason (the non-rational) need not be opposed to reason (irrational). 9 It is important to note the Christian legacy of Stoicism as well as its parallels with Buddhism. Nevertheless, Sherman argues that Buddhism also holds that reason can itself be a dangerous object of attachment. Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 115. Therefore, Buddhism is more like Pyrrhonism than Stoicism, which also aims at ataraxia. Nevertheless, Stoicism and Pyrrhonism share similarities.

17

emotion: they held that emotions are simply beliefs and that our prejudice that emotions are more

than beliefs is simply a mistake.10 Following Aristotle, Stoics maintain that when you change

your beliefs you change your emotions. Emotional beliefs always ascribe value to some person

or thing outside of the individual’s control; hence emotions are always false beliefs, for the

Stoics, since the truth is that the transitory world is without value (neither good nor bad). The

Stoics were convinced of the necessity of eliminating anger and its negative effects on society.

They believed that accomplishing this would similarly require weakening all of the emotions,

since each emotional tie is a bond over which someone might become angry. As we will see in

the next chapter, our current cultural assumptions about emotion are still very much preoccupied

with worries about anger. We can see that the conviction that emotions are judgments is

necessary for the prescription of apathy. If emotions are not judgments, it is not clear how we

can be said to have control over them and how we might go about ridding ourselves of them.

Nearly all contemporary cognitive theorists of emotion follow the Stoic line: that beliefs

are necessary and sufficient for emotions while physical affects are neither necessary nor

sufficient. Yet contemporary cognitive theorists do not agree with the Stoics that the emotions

are necessarily mistaken judgments; they believe that they can inherit a Stoic account that is

more friendly toward the emotions. For example, in Nussbaum’s Aristotelian/Stoic account,

emotions are value judgments. Nussbaum uses the titular metaphor from her book Upheavals of

Thought to describe emotions, holding that they are typically conscious mental preoccupations.

She does not mean that we must constantly attend to them; rather she means that they have

cognitive content. She identifies emotions with eudaimonistic judgments:

So we appear to have type-identities between emotions and judgments—or, to put the matter more elastically, looking ahead, between emotions and value laden cognitive states. Emotions can be defined in terms of these value laden

10 Annas, Morality of Happiness, 62; Diogenes VII 116.

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recognitions alone, although we must recognize that some feelings of tumult or ‘arousal’ will often accompany them, and sometimes [affective] feelings of a more type-specific kind, and although we must recall that they are at every point embodied. If we want to add this very general stipulation to the definition, we may do so though the proviso that we are talking about only the likely case, in order to retain the possibility of recognizing nonconscious emotions.11

Nussbaum agrees that emotions often involve affective states, but she rejects the idea that

affective states should be given definitional necessity. In addition to her example of the

unconscious fear of death, which she holds to be an emotion, she gives the example of anger

at/after her mother’s death that lasted for days, sometimes presenting no physical manifestation

yet at other times expressing itself through physical symptoms. This example highlights a salient

difference between cognitive and affective approaches: affective approaches tend to hold that

emotions follow stimuli extremely quickly and that they are rather short-lived (emotions that

hang on for days are defined as moods or dismissed as emotional remnants). Nussbaum, on the

other hand, identifies an emotion, the fear of death, that lasts a lifetime. Although we by no

means frequently disassociate the cognitive content from the bodily feeling, cognitivism captures

the insights that we would not deny that someone is sad in the absence of certain privileged

bodily feelings—simply saying “I am sad” would presumably be enough—although we would

deny that a person is sad in the absence of a reason or occasion for sadness. In such a case we

would look harder for a reason, or we would deny that the person is really sad; perhaps he is just

tired? (Depression, if it is taken to mean sadness for no reason, is thought to be an emotional

disorder.)

For Solomon, another contemporary follower of the Stoic (turned Sartrian) philosophy of

emotion, “emotions are judgments” (“normative and often moral judgments”).12 But this does not

11 Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 64. 12 Robert Solomon, “Emotions and Choice,” in What is an Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology, ed. Robert C. Solomon and Chesire Calhoun (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984),

19

mean that emotions are propositional attitudes; rather, he claims that “emotions are subjective

engagements in the world.”13 Solomon slides between talk of “judgments” and talk of

“engagement” because both are intentional.14 Solomon focuses on the notion of emotional

engagement to suggest that emotions can be willful or something we can be “caught up in.”

Trying to include their affective aspect, he calls emotions “judgments of the body.”15 Solomon

argues that feelings often accompany emotions, but he argues that emotions should not be

identified with affects because affects are not intentional and emotions are. As we can see,

contemporary cognitive theorists have moved to include affect in their theories, but they hold

that emotions are better understood in terms of their cognitive content.

For Nussbaum, the moral upshot is that emotions teach us about ourselves and our values.

The idea is that we often rationally or unconsciously ignore our relational attachments, and we

ought not do this because they are our moral attachments. For Solomon, following Sartre, the

moral implication of cognitivism is that we are always responsible for our emotions. Sartre,

taking some lead (and license) from Freud, posits that even the most seemingly involuntary

gestures are the products of preconscious wishes—“magical” incantations—and should therefore

be subject to ethical scrutiny as though they were voluntary. Solomon, being a bit more practical,

focuses on the way that emotional displays often serve unconscious purposes and should be

taken to task on this score too.

James is taken to be the forerunner of the affective theorists. In his “What Is an

Emotion?” James argues that emotions are the conscious recognition of bodily responses that

13 Robert C. Solomon, “Emotions, Thoughts, and Feelings: Emotions as Engagements with the World,” in Thinking about Feeling, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 77. 14 This is Sartre’s Heideggerian language, adopted by Sartre to respond to Heidegger’s criticism of (Cartesian) subjectivism. The idea of engagement is meant to imply that consciousness structures the subject and object at the same time. Note the parallel between this idea and James’s proto-Husserlian phenomenology. This continuity alone ought to be enough to obviate the cognitive-affective debate. 15 Solomon, “Emotions and Choice,” 87.

20

follow from certain stimuli. His definition gives primacy to physical responses, such as crying,

and it is often believed that he means to reduce emotions to these symptoms.16 James famously

quipped that we do not cry because we are sad, but we are sad because we cry. In other words,

the emotion should be identified with the bodily event, not with the mental event that may

accompany, follow, or even precede it. Following James, affective theorists hold that feelings are

a necessary element of any emotion. Without affects, we have merely thoughts, not emotions.

For James, perception comes first, and then affect, and then the self-conscious perception of the

affect. His point is that the feeling must come before the self-conscious perception of it. (On the

other hand, James believes that the self-conscious aspect of emotion happens “the moment it

occurs.”17)

Most recently Prinz has offered a thorough and spirited defense of the affective approach

in his Gut Reactions.18 In it he defends the view that emotions are “embodied valent

appraisals.”19 He adopts Lazarus’s notion of “core-relational themes” and argues that emotions

are perceptions of our body’s affective response to the perception of a core-relational theme.20

Nevertheless, Prinz follows James in sometimes conflating the response with our awareness of it;

hence he believes that we can have emotions (the bodily response) that are a part of phenomenal

consciousness but still elude our current attention and thereby count as “unconscious”

16 Solomon and Calhoun write that, for James, an emotion is a “physiological reaction.” Robert C. Solomon and Cheshire Calhoun, “Introduction,” in What is an Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology, ed. Robert C. Solomon and Chesire Calhoun (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 3. James’s essay is reprinted in this collection; the page numbers I give below refer to this edition. 17 James, “What Is an Emotion?” 131. 18 See also Jesse J. Prinz, “Embodied Emotions,” in Thinking about Feeling, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 44-58. 19 Prinz’s survey of the affective and cognitive camps is much more complete than the brief one offered here and should be consulted by anyone pursuing further study. 20 Richard Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Prinz argues that we directly “perceive” core-relational themes, but, far from being counter-intuitive, this borders on tautological. Saying that feeling of sadness is the perception of personal loss does little more than tell us the definition of sadness. “Perception” and “feeling” are being used as synonyms.

21

emotions.21 Although Prinz agrees that emotions can be triggered by judgments and that they are

amenable to cultural influence, he rejects the cognitive approach. Following James, as we will

see shortly, he finds the machinery of the concept too clunky to account for what goes on in an

emotion. He writes: “Forming the judgment that there has been a demeaning offense [involved in

feeling anger], it would seem [according to cognitive theories], requires possession of the

concept of being demeaning and being offensive.”22 This objection paints the cognitive theorist

as being committed to the idea that emotions are always preceded by explicit, conscious

thoughts, which is a dubious inference. Prinz makes the important point that “emotions can

represent core relational themes without describing them… the complexity of that which is

represented need not be mirrored by the complexity of the representation.” Furthermore, Prinz

argues that cognitive theorists are united in holding that the cognitive components of emotion are

“disembodied” because they hold that:

the somatic concomitants of emotions must be distinguished from the concomitant propositional attitudes or appraisals. The cognitive components bound to our emotions are something above and beyond the bodily changes.23

He points to the counterexamples of feelings outlasting their judgments as well as emotions

being triggered somatically to show that emotions are not identical to judgments.

Prinz argues that the fact that “emotions are often contingent on having certain thoughts”

should not be generalized to the claim that “thoughts or ‘cognitions’ are essential to emotions.

One of the most convincing criticisms of the affective approach is the retort that affect is not

enough; mere feelings are insufficient to tell us which emotion we are having or if we are having

21 Prinz borrows Block’s distinction between “access consciousness” and “phenomenal consciousness”; Prinz, Gut Reactions, 203. See Ned Block, “On a Confusion Between a Function of Consciousness,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18, no. 2 (1995): 227-287. 22 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 24. 23 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 25.

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an emotion at all and not just some other physiological experience.24 Prinz argues that the

affective theorist can take the cognitive context of the feeling into account, but that the feeling is

still the core of the emotion. As we will see, Prinz would accuse my approach of falling prey to

what he calls “the Problem of Plenty,” or identifying everything to which emotions are related

with the emotions themselves. Instead, he takes a minimalist, essentialist approach that is

predicated on a distinction between “state emotions” and “attitudinal emotions,” the latter being

emotions that can go without affects but are instead dispositions to have certain affects. Prinz

also makes use of Damasio’s idea of the “as-if loop” to explain instances where emotions “by-

pass the body.”25 These two caveats explain away Nussbaum’s example of the anger at/about her

mother’s death that sometimes went without an affective expression. This conciliatory version of

an affect theory sees Nussbaum’s examples as merely not the best example of an emotion.

The best candidate for an emotion, on the affective view, would be something like the

surge of adrenaline that one gets from being startled. For example, while spotting my toddler son

as he climbs up and down the stairs, my heart will jump if I see him begin to fall. Prinz counts

the fact that I may remain a little jumpy—or my adrenaline might be channeled into

excitement—even after I see that he has caught himself as evidence that affects have a life of

their own and should not, therefore, be linked to judgments.

In his textbook on emotion, Emotion Explained, Rolls devotes chapters to hunger, thirst,

drug addiction, and sexual desire (as he assumes that sexual desire is a purely biological drive).26

24 Cannon was the first to express this argument that “the same visceral changes appear in a number of different emotions.” See W. B. Cannon, “The James-Lange Theory of Emotion: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory,” American Journal of Psychology 39 (1927): 10-124 (reprinted in The Nature of Emotion, ed. M. B. Arnold (Harmondworth, England: Penguin, 1968.). Quotation from The Nature of Emotion, 18. 25 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 71. It is not clear whether this phrase is meant to refer to emotions that occur without affects or emotions that are triggered by judgments. Part of the confusion comes from Prinz’s tendency to use the term “disembodied” to refer to things that are merely in the brain. 26 Edmund T. Rolls, Emotion Explained (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 21. Rolls fails to offer an argument that one can “explain” emotion without referring to any emotion, but instead referring to affective

23

The biological drives that Rolls includes with emotions are never given that classification in

common discourse. We can also see this in the case of startle. Startle is physiologically identical

to fear, but is not, for that reason, the same as fear.

Robinson, on the other hand, has defended the opposite position.27 She criticizes what she

calls the “judgmentalist” philosophical theories of emotion for ignoring the “primitive side” of

emotion.28 Following Ekman and the Darwinian tradition, she argues that startle should be

considered an emotion because it involves a characteristic pattern of neural firing and a

characteristic facial expression. She argues that it is a “developmentally early form” of fear and

surprise. Although Robinson uses LeDoux to challenge the idea that emotions require conscious

thought, she argues that the startle response is an implicit judgment and that, because of this, it

should be taken as the prototypical emotion:

Emotional response should be thought of, on the model of the startle response, as a response that focuses our attention on (makes salient) and registers as significant to the goals (wants, motives) of the organism, something in the perceived (remembered, imagined environment); this response characteristically consists in motor and autonomic nervous system change… 29 This sounds like a possible definition of emotion but an unlikely definition of startle,

since we are startled well before we know whether or not the event is relevant to our desires and

for that reason the startle response is often mistaken. Ekman, on the other hand, holds that startle

is not an emotion because it cannot be inhibited or simulated, and because it is reliably caused by

a loud noise and emotions are not reliably caused by any one general thing.30 Robinson’s

states that even the author does not call “emotions.” It is one thing to attempt to replace ordinary language with more precise theoretical definitions or make the case that people are often confused in their experience; it is quite another thing to simply swap one concept for another, perhaps while giving the explanation that one is rejecting “folk” theories of emotion, as LeDoux does (p. 16). 27 Jenefer Robinson, “Startle,” Journal of Philosophy 92, no. 2 (1995): 53-57. 28 Robinson, “Startle,” 53: she singles out Gabriele Taylor’s and Patricia Greenspan’s work. 29 Robinson, “Startle,” 62. 30 Paul Ekman, “Expression and the Nature of Emotion,” in Approaches to Emotion, ed. K. Scherer and P. Ekman (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1984), 329.

24

argument is motivated by supposedly anti-affective accounts of emotion, but she appears to be

straw-manning her opposition, since it is not evident that “judgmentalist” theories of emotion

would deny that startle is a “proto-emotional response.” Many emotions seem to involve

physiological arousal, but that does not make startle an emotion, much less the prototypical

emotion, as LeDoux seems to assume with his work on the fear response.

We have seen that affective and cognitive theories take two very different types of

emotion as their models for emotion in general. Cognitive theorists hold that it makes sense to

say that someone can be angry without feeling angry; affective theorists think it makes sense to

say that someone can feel angry without having something to be angry about. Yet, I think that it

is obvious that both cases, either emotional affects without intentionality or emotional

intentionality without affects, are rare and occupy the margins of emotional phenomena. Even if

emotions are a “natural kind,” there must be some good reason for counting some things as

emotions and ruling out others; and it the reasons for privileging some emotions over others that

we must examine.

This argument about the way we should define emotion, if it boils down merely to

privileging some instances of emotion and excluding others, does not constitute an interesting

debate. The first and simplest step we can take in overcoming the cognitive-affective debate

involves refusing to squabble over which emotions should or should not count as an “emotion.”

There can be no rational debate about how to cut the psychological cake. The only type of reason

that can be offered in this debate comes from observations about the way we use the word

“emotion,” but contradictory reasons about the way that we should use the word “emotion” count

as well. It is common to point out that the current use of the word “emotion” is a relatively recent

linguistic development and that the term “passion,” with its connection to passivity, is

25

historically more prevalent. “Emotion,” on the other hand, is formed from an active verb. These

etymological musings are ultimately inconclusive; perhaps the recent linguistic development

reflects progress in the latent theory of emotion.31 I think Prinz is right to argue that we usually

use the term emotion to refer to the affect, rather than to the thoughts, but the point of the

cognitive approach is to illuminate emotional experience, not to reflect on natural language.

Furthermore, the criticism that affects alone cannot tell us which affects count as emotions—or

which emotions they represent—still holds sway. If emotions are affects, they must be emotional

affects, and if emotions are judgments, they must be emotional judgments. Hence, the first step

of identifying emotions with one or the other does not yet tell us very much.

Cognitive and affective theorists are sometimes not even interested in the same kinds of

emotional phenomena. Affective theorists, such as Rolls, often include hunger and sexual

excitement among emotions (because they are focusing on physiological processes); whereas

cognitive theorists tend to focus on those emotions that affective theorists would call moods or

dispositions.32 These different definitions are a product of different approaches: one sees itself as

more scientific, focusing on “observable” phenomena, while the other privileges introspection.

Perhaps the most important aspect of James’s theory, from his own perspective, is that it follows

in the foot-steps of Darwinism. He writes that the “nervous system of every living thing is but a

bundle of predispositions to react in particular ways upon the contact of particular features of the

environment.”33 Darwin observes physiological emotional responses, yielding a behavioral

theory of emotion, and speculates about their original adaptive value. So, for example, he 31 See James Averill, “Emotion and Anxiety: Sociocultural, Biological, and Psychological Determinants,” and Amelie Rorty, “Explaining Emotions,” both in Explaining Emotions, ed. Amelie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 32 In focusing on evolutionary explanations, affective theorists tend to resort to the idea that emotions are out-dated adaptations. This tendency yields the difference that affective theorists tend to hold that emotions are “wrong” because they are not appropriate to the situation, more than cognitive theorists do. A more complete discussion of this difference is found in chapter 2. 33 James, “What Is an Emotion?” 129.

26

hypothesizes that crying is a way to protect the eyes during violent expiration. The fact that

James is a part of this general trend in philosophy might help explain why he is associated with

more scientific approaches to emotion, such as neurobiology.34

The full significance of the Darwinian influence on affective theories of emotion must be

appreciated. Biologists have more interest in demonstrating the law-like fixity of universal

emotional phenomena.35 They observe emotions from a third-person perspective, focusing on the

relationship between the subject and the environment.36 This viewpoint is the product of different

goals and yields different forms of study than the cognitive viewpoint, which is more subjective

and introspective. A biological approach focuses on the way that the human is determined by, or

adapted to, the environment. It holds a certain fascination with determinism, and so the affective

theorist holds that affects are caused by the environment (even when the “environment” refers to

subjective thoughts, as Prinz concedes). It is thought that in order to study something

“scientifically” it is necessary to reduce it to this level of cause-and-effect determinism.

Most neurological approaches to emotion focus on the idea that emotions are out of our

control and yet, controllable after the fact. Rolls, for example, makes a distinction between

emotions, which are initiated by stimuli in the external environment, and affective states, which

are caused by a change in the “internal milieu,” where hunger is an example of the latter and

sadness is an example of the former. Furthermore, he believes that this difference is not

34 Were we to draw a line between psychology and biology, James himself would fall onto the former side, since in his The Principles of Psychology he tells us that he follows the “psychological method of introspection.” In fact, this proclamation represents a criticism of and turn away from behaviorism, and so it is somewhat ironic that he is taken to be the father of the affective approach. 35 Affective theorists often object that if emotions are judgments then it would not be possible for animals to have emotions, and yet they do. We need not deny that there are universal emotions or that humans share some forms of emotional expression with other animals, or that emotions have their manifestation in the autonomic nervous system, in order to maintain that emotions also contain latent, useful (not irrational or simplistic) cognitive content. Nussbaum is sensitive to this point. 36 Ekman’s work is a particularly clear example of this tone. See, e.g., Ekman, “Expression and the Nature of Emotion.”

27

sufficiently alienating, making it reasonable to study one and draw conclusions about the other.

Clearly, Rolls’s strategy for explaining emotions “scientifically” is to cut out their cognitive

content in order to explain them biologically.

It is common to level the following criticism at neurology when it pretends to be able to

ground the study of emotion: Neurology cannot do without or even come before psychology or

ordinary language and their theoretical or folk theories of emotion because neurology must rely

on first person reports in order to correlate neurological phenomena with emotions in the first

place.37 The neurologist might counter that he can do without the term “fear” and can instead

show that fear responses, which can be observed without subjective reports, reliably correlate to

amygdalal activity. We might up the ante and demand that the neurologist demonstrate that these

bodily fear responses actually occur in humans experiencing fear. It is likely that they do occur

in a portion of the cases that would be self-reported as “fear” and do not occur in the others (the

neurologist would likely state that he is not interested in those other cases, although some other

neurologist might be); and that we must split the term “fear” into, at least, two types:

physiological and non-physiological fear (such as Nussbaum’s example of the constant un-

conscious fear of death). So far the neurologist has made a pretty good case. Still, neurology is

not likely to inform a theory of emotion if it is not mixed with introspection. As we have seen,

LeDoux’s conclusion that fear responses are “unconscious” is belied by introspection. Neurology

also demonstrates the unfortunate, “scientific” tendency to strip the human (and the animal for

that matter) of her human properties. Introspection is an important part of human life and the

experience of emotion, even if it is not a part of neurology.

Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that the role that freedom and determinism play in

both of these approaches is not a falsifiable hypothesis, but a set of discipline-specific 37 Nussbaum articulates this criticism. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 8.

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assumptions set out for the sake of study. Affective theorists are interested in the causes of

emotions and cognitive approaches are interested in the intentionality of emotion. The latter

naturally leads to analysis—to the question, “what are you angry about?”

My argument is different than Rorty’s argument that biological and cognitive

explanations figure differently in the explanations of different emotions.38 Aside from that fact, it

is also the case that the best way to understand the difference between biological and

psychological explanations is not necessarily in the type of explanation given, but in the general

assumptions and direction of the endeavors. Gesturing back to Aristotle’s comment in De Anima,

we must notice that one can study an emotion either from a biological or a psychological

perspective.39 It is important to note that affective theorists focus on affects insofar as they are

observable, attempting to image and measure the more elusive affects. Scientists focus on affect

and desire, or behavior, because affects are thought to be more physical and objective than

thoughts. A biological study of emotion takes the point of intercourse between the subject and

the environment as its object of study, and so it focuses on the affects that most immediately

occur as reactions to stimuli. While the biological approach is pressured to yield implications for

therapy, its implicit emphasis does not lie in changing the phenomena it studies.40 (It is quite

ironic that the biological approach is interested in classifying and categorizing normal emotional

responses, when currently, in the case of neurology, its primary research objects are pathological

38 Rorty, “Explaining Emotions.” I do generally agree with the conclusions expressed in Amelie Rorty, “Enough Already with ‘Theories of the Emotions’,” in Thinking about Feeling, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 39 “Accordingly, a physicist and a dialectician would define each [attribute of the soul] in a different way. For instance, in stating what anger is, the dialectician would say that it is a desire to retaliate by causing pain, or something of this sort, whereas a physicist would say that it is the rise in temperature of the blood or heat round the heart” (403a25-33). 40 Affective theorists are not opposed to therapy, nor do they hold that changing emotional responses is impossible. Rather, they focus on behavioral training, which the cognitive approach will have to admit is sometimes necessary, as with the case of phobia. Aristotle’s notion of virtue, and, as we shall see in chapters 3 and 4, Kant’s as well, recognizes that emotional therapy must take the form of both theoretical understanding and habitualizing practices. One without the other would yield either coldness or mindlessness.

29

cases—not to mention animals—while the cognitive approach, being introspective, has the most

access to prosaic emotions (Freud aside) and yet is more interested in therapy.)

Taking up either a biological or an introspective perspective leads to certain tendencies in

the study of emotion. The biological approach, more so than the introspective approach, tends to

yield lists of the discrete emotions, assuming that each emotion is a natural kind. It may seem

surprising that Frijda’s book The Laws of Emotion is exactly such a list, since he follows Lewis

in holding that emotions are “self-organizing cognitive appraisals.”41 Yet Frijda holds that

emotions are “states of action readiness,” underscoring the extent to which conative theories,

even though they include both affective and cognitive aspects of emotion, are closely aligned

with affective theories because of their third-person perspective of the relationship between the

subject and environment. Neu, on the other hand, who represents a more cognitive approach,

argues that the emotions do not qualify as natural kinds; they are determined by thoughts and

hence are too numerous to classify in only but the most general groupings. Cognitive theorists

tend to focus on individual and cultural variability instead of universality. Rorty concurs, and

adds that emotions cannot be “sharply distinguished from moods, motives, attitudes, [and]

character traits.”42 Again, in this difference between the two approaches, we do not see a

disagreement about the facts about emotion—Frijda’s “laws” of emotion are not wrong, they are

simply very general and open to the criticism of tautology—but a difference in focus and goal.

The goal of therapeutic self-analysis necessarily sees emotions as fluid and indistinct since it is

familiar with the relationship between emotions and the ways that one emotion can turn into or

reveal itself to contain another.

41 Nico Frijda, The Laws of Emotion (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007); Marc D. Lewis, “Self Organizing Cognitive Appraisals,” Cognition and Emotion 10 (1996): 1-25; Marc D. Lewis, “Bridging Emotion Theory and Neurobiology through Dynamic System Modeling,” Behavioral and Brain Science 28 (2005): 105-131. 42 Amelie Rorty, “Introduction” in Explaining Emotions, Amelie Rorty (ed.) (University of California Press, 1980).

30

II. A Synthesis

In order to discover whether or not there is a substantive disagreement between cognitive

and affective theories of emotion, we must rule out those disputes that are merely verbal.

Existing debate has relied on a good deal of straw-manning, the most obvious and prevalent

example of which come from the cognitive side.

Most cognitive theorists dismiss the affective approach by reducing it to what Prinz calls

a “feeling theory.” The affective position is often caricatured, with references to poetry or

common idioms, as holding that emotions are mere feelings and that they are not about anything

at all. Although the title of his book might suggest otherwise, Prinz distances himself from this

position and is not able to provide a reference to anyone who does hold it.43 James’s position

might be taken for a brute feeling theory, but, as we shall see, that would be a mistake.

According to the affective approach, emotions are not mere feelings; they are more like

perceptions or immediate responses. The idea that the emotion is itself the evaluation is similar

to Nussbaum’s theory, a connection she herself might have made had she bucked the tendency to

misrepresent the affective approach.

Another unfair characterization comes with Prinz’s insistence that cognitive approaches

hold that emotions are “disembodied.” Contra cognitive approaches, Prinz writes: “We should

not feel compelled to supplement embodied states with meaningful thoughts: instead we should

put meaning into our bodies.”44 We have already seen that both Nussbaum and Solomon

characterize emotions as being “embodied.” Solomon’s label of “judgments of the body” seems

identical to Prinz’s point, and yet it seems that Prinz would argue that judgments are necessarily

43 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 198. 44 Prinz, “Embodied Emotions,” 58.

31

“disembodied” because they involve concepts. Emotions, for Prinz, “represent” core-relational

themes, but they do not count as “judgments.”45 The idea seems to be that conceptual thinking

cannot be “embodied,” or it cannot have a feel to it, because concepts are abstracted from

immediate experience.

Calhoun objects to the cognitive approach because, as she argues, emotions and beliefs

and “logically and ontologically” distinct categories.46 This objection is not only question-

begging for an affective approach, but it is far too strong and is not upheld by Calhoun’s

analysis.47 Emotions are interesting precisely because, although we commonly assume a

dichotomy between physical and mental experience—this dichotomy is a normal part of folk

psychology—even an unsophisticated account of a simple emotion belies it. Most emotional

affects are obviously psychosomatic: we commonly recognize that we are able to “worry

ourselves sick” or “work ourselves into a fury.” Thoughts like these are obviously embodied.

Regulating one’s affects by means of one’s thoughts is an everyday occurrence; so is regulating

one’s thought by means of externally manipulating affects. Freud founded modern psychology

on the idea that physical symptoms might contain latent thought content; Averill, adapting a

psychoanalytic approach, argues that one source of the apparent passivity of affect is

45 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 198. 46 Chesire Calhoun, “Cognitive Emotions?” in What is an Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology, ed. Robert C. Solomon and Chesire Calhoun (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 328. Much of Calhoun’s argument seems to be presaged by Rorty’s “Explaining Emotions” (1978). 47 Calhoun details the difference between what she calls “intellectual” or “evidential” beliefs and “experiential” beliefs to help explain emotion-belief conflicts. Experiential beliefs, which come from some kind of biased history, can intrude on one’s intellectual beliefs like a kind of illusion. In this way, we can deny the intellectual validity of our emotions. Emotions, thereby, involve epistemic normativity: our emotions should match our intellectual beliefs. Calhoun concludes that emotions must be analyzed in terms of one’s elaborate system of beliefs, which include “interpretive ‘seeings as…’ and their background cognitive sets.” She concludes that emotions are not beliefs but interpretations; but this conclusion does not address her original criticism that emotions and beliefs, and now interpretations, are logically and ontologically distinct sets. Calhoun, “Cognitive Emotions?” 342. Sherman argues that Aristotle’s notion of phantasia offers this same insight about emotion; Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, 61.

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dissociation.48 True, the relationship between beliefs and emotions does not entail an equation, as

Calhoun points out, but such an equation is not “logically and ontologically” ruled out either.

Still, it is not clear what Solomon and Nussbaum mean by asserting that emotions are

“embodied.” Even though Nussbaum and Solomon insist that affects should not have definitional

priority in “emotion,” given examples of affect-less emotions, it seems that what they really

mean to say is that, to the contrary, all thoughts are “embodied” and have concomitant affects

simply because they are experienced. This is a Heideggerian idea—the idea that Dasein is

always in a mood—and, as we shall see, it is at home in James’s proto-phenomenological

philosophy. (Hume’s notion that experience is distinguishable from thought by the feeling of its

liveliness presages James and suggests a way in which empiricism might lead necessarily to an

affect-based phenomenology.)

It is also possible to argue that, not just present experience, but also memories are

affective. Carruthers, in her study of medieval rhetoric, argues that:

Some traditions in ancient philosophy also recognized an emotional component in all memory. Memory images are composed of two elements: a ‘likeness’ (similitudo) that serves as a cognitive cue or token to the ‘matter’ or res being remembered, and intentio or the “inclination” or “attitude” we have to the remembered experience, which helps both to classify and retrieve it. Thus, memories are all images, and they are all and always emotionally ‘colored’.49

This is understandably not a popular position among those who seek to define emotion, since it

seems to take us one step further away from coming up with that which is unique to emotions.

Both the affective and cognitive sides would seem to agree that the specific thought-affect

combinations that are termed “emotions” as opposed to “thoughts” are so because they fit certain

48 James Averill, “Emotion and Anxiety: Sociocultural, Biological, and Psychological Determinants,” in Explaining Emotions, ed. Amelie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Averill classifies emotions both on a scale of structuralization and perceived self-determination. Highly structuralized emotions, like obsessive-compulsive reactions, are almost indistinguishable from unemotional thought patterns. 49 Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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proto-typical response patterns. We might say that emotions are very lively, lively ideas, or that

they are not just hot, but burning hot, impressions. (Of course, this suggestion verges on parody

because I remain unconvinced that defining emotion is an interesting philosophical enterprise in

the first place.)

We might instead follow Calhoun and concede that affects and beliefs are different, or at

least at opposite ends of a spectrum. Still, we have seen that no one would willingly assent to the

proposition that emotions are “disembodied.” Nussbaum, at least, would agree with Prinz that we

need to “put meaning into our bodies.”50 Her emphasis on emotional insight demonstrates this

conviction: she might rather say that we need to become aware of the meanings that are in our

bodies already. Solomon’s focus, on the other hand, is critical; this is a significant difference to

which we shall return shortly. In the meantime, it is important to note that being critical of one’s

emotions —at least if one is skeptical that they are agents of existential denial—seems to entail

that they are more, not less, meaningful than previously thought. It is still an open question

whether or not said meaning would reside “in our bodies,” but this prolonged attempt to find the

line between the mind and the body begins to contradict the original spirit of “embodiment.”

Prinz’s epithet reveals itself to be really about the role that “concepts” play in emotions.

His point that “the complexity of that which is represented need not be mirrored by the

complexity of the representation” is an important one. It seems to be the case that calling

emotions “judgments” cannot shake the implication that the thoughts that underlie emotions must

be conscious; yet, they are often neither conscious nor explicit. Might the cognitive theorist

merely say that emotions “involve” or “imply” judgments in order to get out of this unfelicitous

connotation? Whatever strategy they take, no cognitive theorist is committed to the idea that

50 Prinz, “Embodied Emotions,” 58.

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emotional judgments must be explicit and conscious. If the problem with judgments is that they

are thought to require slow, conscious mental acts for their deployment, then we cannot say that

emotions involve judgments. Nevertheless, this does not seem to be the reason that cognitive

theorists latch onto the model of judgment in order to describe emotions. The majority of

theorists agree that emotions can occur rather quickly, as if they were not connected to conscious

thoughts, i.e., that there can be snap judgments.

Prinz agrees that emotions involve appraisals, but he aligns these appraisals with

perception rather than judgment. Both James and Prinz take perception as the model for emotion,

but we cannot conclude thereby that they take emotions to be any less conceptual. James would

likely protest that emotions do not involve concepts, but this is due to his derogatory view of

concepts, not of emotions. Throughout his life James became more skeptical of the legitimacy of

explicit conceptual thought and more convinced that truth was conveyed immediately through

practice. In his Varieties of Religious Experience, James’s discussion of truth borders on

mysticism. He describes religious conversion, at least the more spontaneous type, as the

achievement of a more harmonious integration of beliefs and feelings. In other words,

conversion is the most important, although just one, example of a case for which feelings are a

better guide than reason. For James, concepts refer to more abstract mental processes, not

instruments that facilitate normal experience. James follows Pierce in understanding the beliefs

that inform normal decision-making processes as mental habits; in “The Sentiment of

Rationality,” he comes close to arguing that rationality itself is merely a sentiment. Toward the

end of his life he became more suspicious of conceptual thought in general, suggesting in his “A

Pluralistic Universe” that it has a tendency to distort reality.51

51 See Russell Goodman, “William James,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/james/>.

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James’s theory of perception in based in his neutral monism, which holds that the “mind”

and “body” are abstractions that refer to one underlying thing that is itself neither mental or

physical. Similarly, his descriptions of experience combine what we would normally take to be

both mental and physical aspects.52 Perception, for James, is nearly indistinguishable from

conscious recognition because perception itself already represents a cognitively organized form

of sensation.53 Emotions can only be so closely tied to perceptions because perceptions are not of

the given, as Quine argues that empiricists would have it, but are already cognitively formed.

Just as Kant takes his model for experience from judgment, James’s account of perception

includes what we would normally refer to as conceptual recognition. If we follow Solomon in

asserting that judgments need not be propositional attitudes but are rather ways of representing

objects, then we can argue that James’s notion of perception similarly offers a theory of

“engagement” with world.

In calling emotions “embodied appraisals,” Prinz sounds a lot like Solomon or

Nussbaum, but in the affective camp.54 Prinz’s argument shows, perhaps inadvertently, the way

that the affective position is cognitive, or conceptual, on its own terms. The affective account is

conceptual: it relies on the complex meaning of the environmental or internal cue to cause the

affect. It seems that a cognitive theorist should be willing to accept a robust revision of James’s

theory of perception in place of the role that “judgment” or “belief” is intended to play in the

theory.55 In response to the affective position that affects precede judgments, Solomon retorts,

52 See Christopher Hookway, “Pragmatism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/pragmatism/>. 53 Rock believes that James is open to the criticism that he fails to make a distinction between perception and recognition, but this fact merely demonstrates what he means by perception. Irwin Rock, “A Look Back at William James’s Theory of Perception,” in Reflections on the Principles of Psychology: William James After a Century, ed. Michael G. Johnson and Tracy B. Henley (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990). 54 Prinz, “Embodied Emotions,” 57. 55 Here we might mention that in the Rhetoric Aristotle considers beliefs as they may be mere impressions (phantasia, or the way that things currently in her attention strike the person) (Cooper, John M. Reason and

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“there is still cognition there,” referring obviously to the possibility of giving a rational account

of the situation, not to the presence of conscious beliefs.56 Clearly, the difference between the

cognitive and affective approaches must be characterized differently than in terms of conceptual

context.57 Just as Prinz exposes with his discussion of the perception of core-relational themes,

having an emotion involves the employment of concepts. It is not just that we see a box outside

of the door; we see the box as a gift that we have been happily anticipating.58 It is the latter

conceptual meaning, not the box itself, that is a necessary component of an emotion. Using the

term “conceptual” instead of “cognitive” represents progress in overcoming the debate, because

cognitive theorists are not committed to the idea that the content of emotions has already been

explicitly cognized before the emotion occurs, but merely to the idea that it is there and can be

made explicit, even if only after the fact. In the example of the gift, the person most likely does

not explicitly think “There is the gift from my mom that will probably contain my grandmother’s

necklace that I used to love trying on when I was a little girl,” and yet all of those thoughts (and

more) are in some sense present.

This misunderstanding about the debate might be the reason that cognitive theories

appear irksome to affective theorists. To the affect theorist, the cognitive theorist is obstinately

asserting that people are somehow consciously and antecedently aware of the judgments that

Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.) He assumes that the jurors will be rather easily made to feel one emotion or another (and so having two strong but opposite emotional reactions to two opposing well-made arguments serve the search for truth). In terms of my choice to focus on Kant’s and not Aristotle’s theory of emotion, it is important to note that Aristotle does not ask whether or not it is good that people are emotionally volatile. 56 Solomon, “Emotions, Thoughts, and Feelings,” 79. 57 In the attempt to bring together cognitive and affective approaches, Singer and Schachter have developed a “two components” approach arguing that emotions are physiological responses and their cognitive evaluations. Asserting that emotions involve both aspects oversimplifies what is really at stake in the debate, since, as we see, neither side is truly interested in denying that emotions involve both cognitive and affective aspects. Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer, “Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State” in Psychological Review, 69, 1962, pp. 379-399. 58 Prinz flatly denies this, (Gut Reactions, 50); he argues that emotions track concepts without being conceptual themselves. Nevertheless, this conclusion begs the question about what part of subjective experience, thoughts or affects, should count as an emotion while providing evidence against limiting the definition of emotion to affect.

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contribute to an emotion. They are right to object that such a position could not allow for the

quickness of emotions, nor does it ring true from experience. Thus, affective theorists often

caricature the cognitive approach as arguing that all emotions are like false, affected emotion.59

In reality, it is not at all an important feature of a cognitive theory that the subject be consciously

aware of the beliefs and judgments that are related to an emotion. What is important to the

cognitive theorist is that the emotion be cognitively analyzable. In this way, emotions can be

shown to be related to beliefs and judgments after the fact, and their genesis can be constructed

into an intelligible psychic narrative, even if their causes remain unconscious psychic

mechanisms.

Here, in the discussion of the way that we represent emotions to ourselves after the fact,

we are beginning to approach one real difference between cognitive and affective approaches.

Prinz denies that emotions are cognitive because he takes cognition to involve an act that is

within the subject’s control. I do not think that cognitive theorists would accept this definition of

cognition, but it does seem to get at a peculiarity of the cognitive approach that is a hold-over

from Stoicism, viz, the fact that it seems to suggest that we can change our emotions by changing

our judgments. This difference can also be expressed in terms of the passivity or activity of the

emotion or in terms of freedom and determinism, which, as we have already seen, is related to

different disciplinary assumptions.

Prinz retreads some Aristotelian ground in briefly admitting that there is a sense in which

emotions are under our control and a sense in which they are not under our control:

Emotions are voluntary in a double sense. Thinking about something in the right way can certainly influence our emotions, and calibration files can be modified through education and experience. We exert control over emotions by choosing what to think about, and by cultivating calibration files. But emotions are also

59 See Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), and the discussion in chapter 2.

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involuntary in a double sense. First, the thoughts and images contained in an established calibration file may set off emotions automatically. If one happens, by choice, to activate a representation in a calibration file, an emotion will ensue. Second, once an emotion has been initiated, we cannot alter it by direct intervention. Initiation pathways and response pathways both operate without the luxury of control.60

I hesitate to challenge Prinz’s last point because I do not want to spoil the spirit of honest

reconciliation, but I feel compelled to point out that, if there is a difference between the initiation

of an emotion and our response to it, it is surely in the fact that the latter is more under our

control. Of course, it often feels like we are in the grip of an emotion, but that does not make it

so. Rather, emotions are involuntary because, once they have begun, they feel involuntary, and

are not changed as quickly as thoughts are. (Still, I think it is important to challenge the extent to

which conscious thought is under our control. If cognition is an evolutionary adaptation, it is not

radically open to variation in function. Nor do we often experience ourselves as directing

cognition; it is rather the case that the topic or experiences at hand direct cognition.) Also,

emotions are involuntary because the “calibration files” or past experiences that inform them

were not in our control at the time, nor can we change the past. Still, as Prinz says, we can create

new experiences to rival and trump the experiences that we have already been given.

Still, this fully refined point uncovers a further, and perhaps the most important

difference between affective and cognitive approaches: a moral difference. A further possible

difference between “perception” and “judgment” is the degree of subjective responsibility. We

assume that perceptions are caused by objects and judgments are caused by subjects.

Furthermore, perceptions are not thought to involve “truth-claims” because they tell us

something about the subject, not about the object, and judgments can be wrong because they are

about objects. Cognitive theorists have thought that they differed from affective theorists in

60 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 236.

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holding that emotions are “about” something, but, as we have seen, no one maintains that

emotions are not “about” anything. Rather, the salient difference between perception and

judgments is whether or not we focus on their truth. Perceptions can be mistaken, but those who

study perception do not focus on this fact; instead they focus on what perceptions tell us about

the subject. Everyone seems to agree that emotions are evaluations, but some theorists wish to go

further and consider the ways that we do and should evaluate these evaluations.

For James and for Prinz, as well as for the more conciliatory, anti-Stoic, cognitive

approaches, it is important that we not try to alter our emotions. If the emotions presents itself as

absolute, it is perhaps with good reason. Just as Hume uses skepticism to advance empiricism,

James can sometimes appear to be a biological reductionist, but this polemic is in the service of

advancing a psychological monism and moral naturalism. Calling himself a radical empiricist,

James is suspicious of those thought-processes which take themselves to be “pure.” Instead, the

most important intellectual truths are intuitive, and they are products of our natural,

psychological engagement with the world. It is not hard to see that James’s pragmatism

represents a dissatisfaction with the primacy given to reason in the history of philosophy, and so

one defense proffered for the “lower” faculties comes in the form of a Romantic inversion of

value. James seems to want to defend emotion from the imperialist perversion of reason, and his

strategy for doing so is to assert that emotions are more rational than reasons. This move is

certainly not novel, and it is enjoying much current popularity. In fact, if we phrase the debate in

these terms it seems that alliances are re-drawn and many more cognitive approaches, like

Nussbaum’s, end up agreeing with James and Prinz. Prinz’s assertion that emotions are

embodied must be understood as the idea that moral theory must be embodied, or that the body

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must play a foundational role in moral theory, as we can see with the new moral sense theory of

his The Emotional Construction of Morals.61

It is becoming popular to defend the “rationality” of emotions, not by assimilating them

into the rational mind but by arguing that they take precedence over the rational mind. Two

related lines of argumentation have become common in linking emotionality to morality in this

way; both are based on the idea that emotions help unemotional reason make decisions. The first

is that emotions help us to act morally. Some versions of this argument hold that morality is

grounded in natural moral feelings, like empathy, and it is therefore similar to the moral sense

theory of Hume or Hutcheson. We have already seen that James and Prinz take this approach.

The second is that emotions give us information about out values. This argument also tends

towards moral sense theory, although less directly.

Neurobiologists who study emotion speculate that emotions are important for reasoning

and moral behavior. Damasio’s work is the most well known in this regard.62 Damasio studies

people with frontal-lobe brain damage who, although they behave normally in other ways,

behave in an irresponsible way that is inconsistent with their pre-trauma personalities. They have

trouble managing their finances, getting to work on time or going at all, and following through

with required job tasks. They violate social conventions, sometimes breaking laws, and they

show a lack of empathy with their spouses.63 Previously these behaviors had been explained as

an impairment of reasoning or memory abilities, but Damasio argues that these explanations are

not satisfactory and speculates that the problems are caused by a breakdown of emotional, not

cognitive functioning. He argues that the patients fail to bring to mind the appropriate emotional

61 Jesse J. Prinz, The Emotional Construction of Morals (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 62 See Antonio R. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Orlando, Florida: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003); and Antonio R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (New York: Harvest Books, 2000). 63 Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, 141.

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memory that would help them behave properly or make an effective decision. Damasio uses this

idea to argue that feelings are “rational,” i.e., they are beneficial to good reasoning. His argument

is similar to De Sousa’s defense of the “rationality” of emotion, which holds that emotions help

us both to answer questions of salience and to break stalemates in rational decision-making.64

Damasio’s view of emotion is based on what he calls the “somatic marker hypothesis” of

decision-making.65 It holds that emotions are “integral to processes of reasoning and decision-

making” because the “mechanisms of reasoning” are normally affected by “signals hailing from

the neural machinery that underlies emotion.”66 Bechara’s work in conjunction with Damasio,

especially the article “Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy,”

helps to illuminate the full force of the idea that emotions are rational. This article describes an

experiment in which people with prefrontal brain damage (and decision-making defects) and

people without brain damage were asked to play a gambling game in which certain choices were

riskier than others. The people without brain damage, after playing for a while, had a hunch that

certain decks of cards were riskier. Many of them, after playing for even longer, could articulate

the reason that those decks were riskier. The entire non-brain damaged group avoided the risky

decks. The group with prefrontal brain damage did not report experiencing a hunch, even though

later, almost half of them had conceptual knowledge of the reason certain decks were more and

less advantageous. Surprisingly, no one from the brain-damaged group avoided the

disadvantageous decks, even those who explicitly knew that that they were disadvantageous. The

experiment, like the patients discussed above, demonstrates a gap between conceptual

64 See Ronald De Sousa, “The Rationality of Emotions,” in Explaining Emotions, ed. Amelie Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); and Ronald De Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990). 65 This theory is similar to what De Sousa calls the “New Biological Hypothesis” of emotion (The Rationality of Emotion, 195-201). 66 Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens, 41.

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knowledge and behavior. From this experiment, Bechara and Damasio conclude that human

decision-making involves two possible paths: affective and cognitive, the latter borrowing from

the former. They speculate that the affective path makes use of nondeclarative knowledge that

draws on memory of rewards and punishments. Damasio refers to this as a “gut feeling.”67

Of course, this model that posits two levels of decision-making does not explain the

reason that the brain-damaged subjects failed to choose advantageously even when they had the

conceptual grasp of the situation. The explanation would have to be that they did not care in the

same way that the subjects without brain damage did. Similarly, in their lives, the reason for

causing trouble in their marriages and jobs would have to be that they did not care about these

things. The fact that those people without a hunch, or, in other words, with a feeling impairment,

were not able to act on explicit conceptual decision-making suggests that cognitive decision-

making processes rely on affect, just as they rely on other types of information, not that there are

two distinct processes. Furthermore, the fact that there can be a “hunch” that precedes cognition

seems to demonstrate the ways that feelings are conceptual. Hence, there seems to be no

evidence to posit a duality of reasoning systems. The hunch that the subjects displayed first may

have been a precursor to conceptual knowledge, rather than an act of an essentially different kind

of reasoning. Their recognition that somatic markers might be generated cerebrally

acknowledges this possibility.68 Neurologists tend to argue that differing brain pathways count as

evidence for differing faculties; they do not realize that this begs the question.

67 Like other functionalists, Damasio ignores the obvious fact that emotions do not always appear functional. In fact, there is reason to think that we more readily associate the emotions that do not appear functional with the term “emotion” than we do the mere triggering of an “emotional memory,” as with remembering that we were punished the last time we engaged in a certain behavior. 68 Antoin Bechara, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio R. Damasio, “Emotion, Decision Making and the Orbitofrontal Cortext” in Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 10, Number 3, 295-307, March 2000.

43

Damasio believes that affective reasoning is distinctly based on memory of reward and

punishment; yet his gambling experiment is entirely a task of achieving reward and avoiding

punishment, so, in effect, the lack of a control group disallows such a conclusion. Furthermore, it

is not clear why conceptual knowledge would be insensitive to considerations of reward and

punishment (or even why all reasons cannot be construed as rewards and punishments) and why

a separate decision-making process is necessary to accommodate these considerations. Those

people who had the hunch did not stop behaving advantageously as soon as they understood the

reason for it. There is, in fact, no evidence that nondeclarative knowledge draws from a different

kind of evidence, such as opinion, prejudice, or personal memory, than does conceptual

reasoning. “Emotional knowledge” is being construed in a strange way, again like an unthinking

impulse to action, if it is to be the thing that can account for the fact that certain brain-damaged

patients fail to act on their conceptual knowledge in certain situations.

Damasio studies the role that brain anatomy plays in the experience of certain moral

sentiments, but his research has been taken further to draw conclusions for moral theory. In one

experiment, brain-damaged people were more likely to make utilitarian hypothetical moral

decisions than those without brain damage, who felt more beholden to the value of an

individual’s life. Theorists like Kitcher and de Waal try to draw conclusions from this about the

validity of Utilitarianism and Kantianism. Thankfully, they conclude that it is better not to have

brain damage!69 Nevertheless, neurobiology is no basis for moral theory, and someone could

easily draw the opposite conclusion. Ironically, many Kantian-inspired moral theories argue that

moral reasoning is exactly that type of reasoning that is most rational.

69 Roxanne Khamsi, “Impaired Emotional Processing Affects Moral Judgments,” New Scientist 13, no. 7 (2007).

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This account of morality is similar to that of moral sense theory; Damasio and others who

support his research even use the term “moral sentiments.”70 Indeed, Damasio is vulnerable to

the same criticisms as Hume—turning Hume’s Law against Hume himself—that we cannot

derive “ought” statements from “is” statements. Still, this is a common confusion. Damasio does

not attempt to divide cases in which we should follow natural sympathy or our instinct to follow

rules from those wherein it would be immoral to do so. As a biologist, Damasio does not pretend

to be a moral theorist, but he does seem vulnerable to the temptation to explain and justify

morality through biology and evolution.71

Other theorists pick up the suggestion that emotions are useful for reasoning and

similarly attempt to draw conclusions about morality. Murdoch, Nussbaum, Blum, and Walker

all advance the idea that emotions help us with the problem of salience, or, since they reveal

values, they help us to know that some things are more valuable than others, and thus they aid us

in decision-making, especially moral decision-making.72 Yet the fact that emotions express

personal values does not mean that they express moral values. The “information claim,”

assuming along with Damasio that there are separate rational and emotional decision-making

processes, represents a confusion about what reason, as well as moral theory, is. Simply to know

that someone values such and such does not tell us anything about what that person should value.

It similarly involves a straw-manning of the champions of moral reasoning, including Kant.

Solomon might be taken as one of the only remaining critics of emotion because he

continues to highlight the importance of making conscious choices of emotions, to have a

“willingness to become self-aware, to search out, and challenge the normative judgments

70 Damasio, Looking For Spinoza,163. 71 Damasio refers to the WHO, UNESCO, and the United Nations (Looking For Spinoza, 169). 72 Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of the Good (London: Routledge, 1970); Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge University Press, 2001; Margaret Urban Walker, “Moral Understandings: Alternative ‘Epistemology’ for a Feminist Ethics,” Hypatia 4 (1989): 15-28.

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embedded in every emotional response.”73 Following Sartre, he argues that, since “normative

judgments can be changed through influence, argument, and evidence, and since I can go about

on my own seeking influence, provoking argument and looking for evidence, I am as responsible

for my emotions as I am for the judgments I make.”74 Nevertheless, he joins the Romantic camp

when he argues that the insight that emotions are values “wreaks havoc on several long cherished

philosophical theses” like the idea that morality must be based on reason.75

Stocker examines the evaluative dimension of emotion in his book Valuing Emotions,

proposing to go beyond what he calls “the information claim” that emotions are demonstrations

of or give information about personal values.76 He argues that emotions are not merely

instrumentally useful, because “emotions are also essential constituents of life and value.”77 On

the one hand, he means no more by this condition than to assert that human life is essentially and

necessarily emotional. On the other hand, Stocker flirts with emotivism, even though he

eventually rejects the emotivist claim that emotions are “internal to value.”78 Stocker argues that

emotions teach us three things: the value of having emotions, adeptness in being emotional and

having emotions, and the content of other people’s emotions.79 This idea about learning from our

emotions is very much like the notion of emotional intelligence that I develop in the next

chapter. Stocker similarly suggests that there are correct and incorrect modes of emotional

engagement. Drawing from a connection between the Aristotelian notions of phronesis and habit,

73 Robert C. Solomon, “Emotions and Choice,” in What is an Emotion? Classic Readings in Philosophical Psychology, ed. Robert C. Solomon and Chesire Calhoun (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 325. 74 Solomon, “Emotions and Choice, 316. Solomon’s thesis might be better expressed with the more general idea that we are responsible for ourselves. There seems to be no reason for him to focus on emotions since he does not have an example of someone who argues that we are totally passive with regard to the passions; rather, he is inspired by Sartre’s general emphasis on personal responsibility. 75 Solomon, “Emotions and Choice,” 313. 76 Michael Stocker and Elizabeth Hegeman, Valuing Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 82. 77 Ibid., 85. 78 Ibid., 137. 79 Ibid., 188-89.

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he argues that correct emotional engagement reveals the correct values.80 This seems to be

(tautologically) true, but Stocker does not venture to tell us anything about the nature of correct

emotional engagement or correct valuing—doing so should be acknowledged as a difficult task

that would presumably take us out of the realm of a theory of emotion and into moral theory.

Nevertheless, I believe that we can show that moral theory is internal to emotional experience

without resting on the conviction that emotions simply are values.

III. Evaluating Emotions

We have seen a redrawing of the lines of the debate between cognitive and affective

approaches: some theorists from both camps are united in the assumption that the emotions are

valuable and should be heeded. Nevertheless, flipping the evaluation of emotion from “wrong”

to “right” does not entail fully overcoming of the Stoic legacy. We must reject both the idea that

emotions are privileged sites of information and the idea that emotions are problematic,

unthinking impulses. Indeed, I do not believe that emotions are any more natural or irrational

than reason itself. The idea that the emotions give us information about our values, that they are

or reveal values, cannot explain the way that emotions can provide objective ethical insights on

their own. This section strives to uncover many of the more complex ways that moral theory is

internal to the experience of emotion.

Moral theory is internal to the experience of emotion to the extent that it is internal to

experience in general. Most models of the subjective encounter with moral theory portray it as a

form of rational deliberation. One question that is often asked is what role emotion should play

in these thought-processes. It is thought that emotions are necessarily partial and hence resist the

impartiality of moral reasoning. This concern continues to assume that emotion and reason are 80 Ibid., 202.

47

two fundamentally different mental faculties. If we can show that emotion and reason are

internally related, then the role that emotions play in moral reasoning will come into clearer

view.

Emotions are often thought to be irrational (not just foreign to rationality but actually

opposed to rational thought) because, as with anger, they sometimes seem to cause us to act

before we have a good plan of action. Imagine, for example, that a father is tending to his four-

year-old daughter at a public play yard. The play yard is quite busy, and among the children are

some older boys running around carelessly, playing tag. Among them is a particularly tall boy,

wearing combat boots that are easily as large and at the same level as many of the younger

children. The father becomes worried that the young children might get kicked, and when one of

the older boys inadvertently hits one of the children the father leaps up, as if to attack, with the

goal of making the older boys leave the play yard. A verbal fight ensues, but the boys eventually

leave. The father then feels vindicated, but also regretful, and wonders whether his actions were

justified and optimal.

Perhaps at this point he, or others, might blame the “emotion” of “anger” for causing him

to act so attackingly instead of coolly addressing the boys and making them aware of the

problem. Some affect theorists will point out that the action was a product of the “fight” response

and an automatic result of the adrenaline coursing through his veins. On this model, the

individual must find a way to control the feeling of anger. A functionalist account will adopt this

same explanation but with a positive spin: were it not for the feeling of compulsion, the father

might have done nothing, and someone might have gotten hurt. Perhaps the “fight” response was

warranted, given the seeming prevalence of violent encounters in our society and the appearance

of the boys. Greenspan argues that emotions are “rational” because they are quick and useful

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impulses; but in this situation it is exactly the moral and pragmatic evaluation that is left

undetermined.81

Again, and now from different theoretical perspectives, we are faced with the dichotomy

of “emotion” as either bad or good. This dichotomy misses several facts pertinent to the

situation. First, the father was worried before he was angry. It is not likely that the father saw the

boys as a threat in the same way that a cave-man sees a mountain lion as a threat: if that were the

case, he likely would not have let his daughter play there. The worry was more likely a result of

internal strife and fear of confrontation. Understood this way, we see the altercation with the

boys as a brief episode in the life of the emotion, which was, for a much longer time, pre-

occupied with the questions: What should I do? and What should I have done? These questions

were encapsulated in and accompanied by a variety of different affects, and both the affects and

the thoughts gradually changed into other experiences. Still, during this one slice of time, we can

see that the father was asking himself pragmatic and moral questions. In other words, what

started out as an example of an emotion revealed itself to be an example of moral deliberation.

I resist the tendency to call the emotion an impulse, or, rather, to call the impulse the

emotion, because doing so causes us to ignore the broader and equally relevant situational

context. There also seems to be no reason to assume that reason is inherently slow and that,

therefore, the emotion must be the result of a substantially different faculty. If emotions are

quick impulses that follow rational directives, what prevents us from saying that they are a

manifestation of reason, an example of reason acting quickly? As we have seen from more fully

considering Prinz’s theory of emotion, if an impulse is involved, it is the function of rational

recognition.

81 Patricia S. Greenspan, Emotions and Reasons: An Inquiry into Emotional Justification (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1988).

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In this one example of worry and anger about an interaction with another person, we can

see that the emotion is itself an example of moral decision-making. The affects and the thoughts

seem to go hand in hand. We can say that the thoughts caused the affects, but there is no

evidence for that. It is just as likely, per Prinz’s theory, that the affects are what first spotted the

trouble and the thoughts were scrambling to catch up. In other words, in this case we can see that

the emotion is itself occupied with moral questions.

Might the moral decision-making have gotten on better if the emotions did not exist?

Would someone without any emotions at all have acted differently and more effectively? Most

people now answer this question negatively, but that is because they believe that without

emotion the father would fail to see the moral and pragmatic urgency in the first place. I think

that that is not necessarily true. I think that an unemotional person might have done a better job,

depending on how much he knows about moral reasoning. If we ask the man now, after the

emotions have subsided, “What should you have done in that situation?” He will most likely say,

“I don’t know.” He might come up with some hypotheses, but nothing about which he feels sure

enough to say that he will try to do next time. Reason is only a good guide if reason is well-

versed in moral theory and human psychology, since the people involved did, in fact, have

emotions.

Still, it is possible that someone with a feeling impairment, provided that he still had the

“feeling” of his daughter’s worth and the innate value of the other children on the playground

(including the older boys), would have handled this situation better. Imagine someone high on a

serotonin-producing drug: this person would not have experienced the worry about his own

ability to handle the situation and the fear that a fight would ensue. The drug-aided father might

have had a much easier time talking to these boys (if only because he might have distracted the

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boys for other reasons). The fact that drugs might have helped the father overcome these beliefs

might show that the affects need to be prevented in the future, or it might show that they the

product of beliefs that are not very deeply entrenched. Perhaps the father was just in a bad mood.

In fact, internal oscillation over whether or not he does actually have these beliefs may have

further added to the indecision and worry.

So, am I then conceding that the emotion, fear of conflict, is irrational? It is irrational in

the sense that it is based on a false belief: the father is, in theory, capable of dealing with this

situation. It is also irrational because it was dysfunctional, contributing to a less than optimal

solution to the problem. Nevertheless, the emotion of fear is no less rational than the father’s

belief about his own incapability. Both the belief and the affect are based on a very real lack of

experience and knowledge. Perhaps they are even based on a number of experiences of past

failures. Very few of us are any good at confronting and changing the behavior of strangers. We

must not fall into the trap of thinking that “reason” is always perfectly rational. It is only

prejudice that makes the question about the degree to which emotions are “up to us” look like it

makes more sense than the degree to which thoughts are similarly “up to us.” In other words, it is

not the affect that is at fault here—a computer might be similarly programmed to shut down in

certain situations—but the complex, habituated thought-affect complexes. If the father did

something morally blameworthy, the father is the one to blame. People, not faculties, are the

objects of moral evaluation. (As Kant writes, we can act only under the assumption of free will.)

As De Sousa remarks, judging whether or not an emotion is “rational” is a “complicated

process [that] is at the center of our moral life.”82 This one example has shown that emotional

experiences can themselves be concerned with moral questions. It also reminds us that even the

moral evaluation of emotions is similarly emotional. This is what I mean in saying that emotions 82 De Sousa, “The Rationality of Emotions,” 149.

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are self-evaluative. Especially with negative emotions like anger, we often feel that we should

not feel them (and hence feel some type of guilt or frustration) even as we are feeling them. Of

course, this self-evaluation may or may not be morally correct.

Prinz tentatively attributes this “meta-cognitive” insight to Nussbaum, even though he

eventually expresses it himself: “To assent to a value laden appearance, one must form another

judgment, to the effect that this judgment is justified.”83 Therefore, “emotions are judgments

about judgments.” In other words, emotions not only contain evaluations, they are self-

evaluative. In my mind, this fact parallels the relationship between a theory of emotion and a

theory of emotional intelligence, which is itself a moral endeavor. The latter asks and answers

questions about which emotions we should feel, while emotions themselves prompt these

questions and provisionally assume answers.

In the case of negative emotions, it is more often the case that we form the meta-

judgment that the emotion is not justified. A good example of this comes from St. Augustine’s

Confessions. After his conversion, Augustine judges the feeling of grief a sin, since it reveals an

attachment to the created and transitory world. With the death of his mother, he wills himself not

to feel sad, and succeeds in only crying a little bit. He then uses sleeping and bathing to change

the emotion. Instead of sadness, he is overcome with anxiety over the fate of his mother’s soul,

and pleads with God to save her, even though he admits having no reason to worry. In this case

we can see that the evaluation of the emotion changed the emotion itself, even in a way that

exceeded Augustine’s conscious control and awareness. I believe that Augustine’s Christian

evaluation of and experience with death is the most common model for grief in our culture,

especially among people dealing with death for the first time or with the death of someone with

whom they were not particularly close. Moral theory is called on to evaluate the meta-cognitions 83 Prinz, Gut Reactions, 9.

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that accompany and inform emotional experience and, in some cases, to therapeutically alter

them.

On the other hand, there are certainly cases in which the emotions themselves seem to be

morally blameworthy, whether we evaluate them as such or not. Solomon gives us the example

of a husband who picks a fight with his wife, and who ends up feeling very angry, in order to get

out of going to a party to which he did not want to go. There seems to be something

blameworthy about this dishonesty, and the selfishness that motivates it; the husband is either

unaware of this moral dimension to his emotion or denying it. Discussing the disagreement about

going to the party directly would have been less selfish, even though it would have more

honestly disclosed self-centered desires. In this case, we would hope that the moral insight would

be enough to change the experience of the anger, although, as we shall see, it may not be enough

to motivate a more honest exchange. Regardless, I think it is interesting to consider the extent to

which unconscious moral self-condemnation is internal to the emotion, perhaps even fueling it

through transference.

Sartre suggests that all emotions serve disavowed purposes. While this should be

regarded as an empirical claim, we are nonetheless morally beholden to scrutinize our emotions

on this score. The father’s anger did serve the purpose of scaring the boys away, after all. It is

also possible that the assumption that anger and confrontation are socially unacceptable caused

the expression of the emotion to take the form of an explosion that was calculated to override the

internal censors. If that was his true goal, is he not somehow morally responsible for

acknowledging it? In chapter 4 I argue that Kant’s theory of virtue suggests that one does have

such a responsibility, and I agree.

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The topic of evaluating and changing our emotions logically leads to a discussion of the

appropriateness of emotion. Emotional appropriateness appears under the guise of the natural,

but there is moral normativity built in to this notion of the natural; and so moral theory is related

to the experience of emotion in the sense that we should and should not feel certain emotions.

Let us take the example of sadness at death. If someone proclaimed herself to be not very upset

(the word “sadness” is not even strong enough) about the recent death of her mother, that she

neither had sad thoughts nor sad affects, we should be very worried. Experience teaches us that

such cases of disavowed sadness surface in psychosomatic ailments or harmful behaviors such

irresponsible drug use and sexual behavior, violence, addictions, or vehicular accidents. We

would attest that, in some sense, she is actually sad. (This example shows us one way that the

emotions transcend both affect and cognition.) Not only is it necessary for psychological health

that she feel sadness, it is also a moral expectation, both to recognize honestly the importance of

one’s relationships and the identity of oneself, but also to, as is often said, “pay one’s respects.”

It is possible that the latter moral demand promotes the psychological health of the individual

through cultural dictate, since there seems to be something inherently difficult in experiencing

negative emotions as well as recognizing the negative emotions of others.

Western thought, being no stranger to the role of the commander, most frequently gives

voice to this dimension of the relationship between emotion and morality, but we do not often

see “natural” as itself a term of value. De Sousa defends this objective view of emotion: the idea

that emotions perceive real (axiological) properties of the world.84 Adorno similarly develops an

objective theory of emotion regarding aesthetic experience. My point here is to put the emphasis

on what De Sousa calls the “paradigm scenarios” themselves, regardless of whether or not they

elicit the paradigm emotions. Just as Aristotle tells us that the virtuous person feels happiness 84 De Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion.

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and sadness at the correct things because he has been raised in a virtuous society,

psychologically informed moral theory can tell us what these scenarios should be. The example

of natural emotions does serve the point of the information claim: that emotions seem to ground

values. Nevertheless, we can also say that natural values ground emotions. In both cases, it

should be clear that the term “natural” is being used in a prescriptive, not an empirical, sense.

The example of natural emotions is also important for showing us one way that

behavioral training and rational training overlap: both thinking and affective response are

grounded in certain key evaluative experiences. I reject the line of thought, seen for example in

De Sousa, that takes emotions to be “rational” because rationality in itself (being unemotional)

would collapse for lack of direction without them. The example of natural emotions shows us

that thoughts are often themselves inextricably connected to lived values.

In the event that we endeavor to alter our emotions therapeutically, it is likely that we

will need to employ both rational insight and behavioral training. Returning to the experience of

natural paradigm scenarios accomplishes both at once. So for example, the father might attempt

to cultivate empathy or sympathy for the older boys by imagining himself in their position or the

position of one of their fathers. Nevertheless, the possible difficulty of changing one’s emotional

habits cannot be overstated. In this case if the father defers his own need to feel competent and

safe in preference to the boys, the underlying problem-complex of the emotion will not be

resolved.

The cognitive approach too often ignores the role of nature in our emotional lives, and for

this reason it backslides too easily into Stoicism. It would be wrong to try to bar instincts or

drives from playing a role in a theory of emotion. In the style of Freud’s libidinal theory, we

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might grant that emotions bear a special relationship to instinctual drives.85 For Freud, the

instincts are oriented toward love, which is itself a drive for self-overcoming.86 If we keep in

mind that we must understand emotions within the context of natural needs, we will not fall into

the Stoic trap of thinking that emotions are so easy to explain away. In other words, a theory of

emotion must have a robust appreciation of social and emotional needs, of love, or else the

emotions will necessarily appear mistaken or dim-witted. Emotions express both needs and, as

we saw earlier, they are often disassociations. This might be the case because needs remind us of

our finitude. In the language of psychoanalysis, they belie our wish (of the ego-ideal) to be whole

and self-sufficient. Freud writes that repression comes from the ego-ideal, and that feelings of

guilt and inferiority accompany negative emotions.87 The narrative we construct in coming to

understand our emotions might refer to relatively fixed, or natural, psychic laws, but these are

laws that the subject can work with in coming to better understand herself, just as we do not

create but work with the laws of logic and the facts of experience. What is important is the

possibility of self-analysis, even if it is not, or even cannot in principle, be completed.

The case of natural emotions shows us that moral convictions are sometimes emotional

convictions, but this insight transcends the case of natural emotions and is complicated by more

complex examples. It might be the case that we experience our convictions emotionally, as with

the case of sympathy; hence there are moral emotions. (In chapter 4, I discuss Kant’s important

distinction between moral sympathy and the mere feeling of sympathy.) There are also cases in

which our more theoretical moral convictions are repressed and become emotional, lest they be

85 I do not agree with Freud that some emotions must be repressed. Perhaps I can be criticized as Pollyanna-ish, but clearly my theory of emotion holds that repression is, for the large part, necessarily bad. 86 See especially Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1990); and Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1990). 87 See, in particular, Sigmund Freud, “On Narcissism: An Introduction” (1914), and Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, 81.

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lost entirely. We might take the latter case as an example of emotions taking on the Sartrian

“magical” functionality, accomplishing that which we do not feel consciously able to

accomplish. One example of this might be my recent bout of self-inflicted hair traumas. I had a

particular topic I needed to discuss with my stylist—a sort of apology I felt obliged to give—but

I had been afraid to bring it up during the previous haircut. Cutting my own hair caused me

(unconsciously) to have an excuse to see her again, and it gave me a further motivation to get the

apology over with, lest I feel the unconscious need to cut my own hair again. Another example is

a time when I fainted during a medical experiment in which I felt that the dignity of my body

was being violated. I did not feel able to explicitly address the doctors running the experiment

and rescind my consent, but fainting succeeded in rescuing me from the situation.

These examples show us at least two things. One, we have a real, psychological need to

follow through on our moral convictions. It is only the portraying of moral experience as any less

“embodied” that leads to the pseudo-questions about the relationship between morality and

emotion. And, two, these examples show us that we are not transparent to ourselves, and yet

some degree of transparency (honesty) is demanded by morality. This topic is discussed in more

depth in chapter 4.

Both of these cases lead to fairly thorough resolutions. Unfortunately, there are also cases

in which our moral/emotional convictions are repressed and transferred into different emotions

entirely, such as sadness and anxiety. In this way emotional/psychological health is related to

virtue. The notion of virtue itself entails courage, in my mind and in Kant’s, as he portrays it as a

kind of strength or fortitude. Following through on our moral knowledge and conviction requires

courage. This is not the courage to overcome emotions, but the courage to have emotions. Our

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relationships with our closest loved ones provide countless examples of the necessity of this type

of courage.

It would of course be fallacious to conclude that all emotions involve moral questions.

We should notice that many of the previous examples involve negative emotions. Positive

emotions sometimes involve moral commitments, but they do so in a different way: obviously in

a happy, rather than a troubled, way. I am perhaps embarrassed to admit that cases of purely

positive emotions (not, for example, the fear of being happy) seem less relevant to a discussion

of moral self-improvement and hence less interesting to me. I am not alone in focusing on

negative emotions, but I do take myself to be an exemplar in admitting this bias. Many theories

of emotion seem to take negative emotions for their paradigm since they are so much more

gripping and concentrated, as well as seemingly in need of help from theory.

After admitting that my insights about emotion do not necessarily apply to all emotions, I

conclude this chapter by partially formalizing the theory of emotion assumed and developed in

the rest of the dissertation. Mostly my approach is based on the conviction that emotions should

not be identified with any one “part” of the self, and, to the extent that we can, we should stop

thinking in terms of “parts” of the self entirely. Indeed, it is this compartmentalized way of

thinking that leads to the simplistic idea that emotions can be judged wholesale. If an emotion

represents just one part of the self, it makes sense to speak in terms of either “mastering” and

“controlling” or “valuing” and “affirming” the emotions. If there are truly “parts” of the self,

they might be afforded only such limited yes-or-no communication. Furthermore, one can only

“master” and “control” something that is significantly different from himself. It is no doubt

possible to believe just that, and to act as though there are two different selves; this

schizophrenic or disassociating move is, I believe, part of the problem that needs to be overcome

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in cultivating emotional intelligence.88 Chapter 2 is largely concerned with the discourse of

“mastering,” but now is the time to speculate about what a theory of emotion that is based on a

unified theory of subjectivity might look like.

Different emotional experiences, positive and negative emotions, are significantly

different. Even if we accept the idea that emotions form a natural kind, it would be more

intellectually honest to begin with a survey of variety before we posit an exclusionary essence. It

is sometimes the case that the affect comes first; other times the affect builds as if the thoughts

themselves become more and more heated; sometimes the affects, if they are present at all, are

not nearly as important as the thoughts. There is the still further possibility that both affect and

thought are unconscious, although it means something different to say that affects are

unconscious than it does to say that thoughts are unconscious, and manifesting themselves only

indirectly. It is also the case that “affect” is not itself easy to pin down. To the question: “Am I

now having an affect?” the answer must be “yes”; and even though there seems to be some

distinction between emotional and other affects, I cannot begin to imagine how we could

possibly make such a distinction in a way that relies only on the affects themselves.

Taking all of these caveats in stride, it is beneficial to gesture toward an understanding of

emotion that respects its context in experience and protects a unified model of subjectivity. I like

to think of emotions as involved in processes of subjective development (Bildung), as processes

involving immediacy, expression, and reflection.89

88 Note that I am using the term schizophrenia to refer to a different problem than that for which Stocker uses the term (one’s motives not matching up with one’s necessary values), a sense that implies that his theory of emotion still suffers this ailment. My use is not unlike Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s, in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), but is perhaps closer to the phenomenon referred to by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, in Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1976). 89 Reflection should not be understood as stagnation. Emotions are usually calls to act, and simply “reflecting” rather than acting is to ignore the emotion, but so is action without an understanding of the reason for and the goal of the action, as well as, and most importantly, the best strategy for action.

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A theoretical model of an emotion in general can put the affect first and then include its

development into thoughts, but if we assume such a model, it is of the utmost importance to

realize that the affect itself contains the germ of the discursive thoughts. It is this idea of latent

content, favoring the move of analysis, that is at the heart of the cognitive approach.

Understanding the relationship between affect and cognition in terms of expression is

illuminative because it reveals an emotional need to externalize, or emote in some fashion, and

the preoccupation we have with some, especially negative, affects. This idea is helpful, both to

explain the normal course that emotions seem to take and to aid in diagnosing emotional

maladies. The affects might themselves be the externalization, in the form of laughter, a smile, or

tears, for example. Or the affect might be a feeling that is itself a desire, to scream or hug

someone—conative theories call this a “state of action-readiness.” It is important to understand

that, if we take emotions to be merely affects, emotions are always a call to some kind of

expression. If this is true, emotional experiences are always a crisis of practical reason: they

demand: “what should I do?” “what can I do?” or perhaps “what is the meaning of this?” In the

case of negative emotions, whose affects usually begin internally, the question is more “what

should I do now?” In the case of positive emotions, whose affects are usually expressed

externally automatically, the question “what should I do?” is a call for mental action: a call to

recognize, to reevaluate one’s commitments and identity, to, in the future, plan accordingly.

Hence, emotions are taken to offer salience to certain situations. If a situation is “emotional” it is

important, not because its meaning is given, but precisely because its meaning is contested.90

Emotions sometimes point to thoughts that we have not yet thought.

90 The argument that emotions are “modes of attention” that “track morally relevant news” strikes me as feeble (Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, 39). It is comparable to responding to skepticism by praising the wonders of sight. First, it talks past the criticism of emotion. Second, it inadvertently reinforces the assumption that

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Neither the affect, nor its immediate expression or translation into discursive thought, are

the end of the story. Emotional experiences carry deeper implications for our lives, and so the

next step of an emotional experience is the call for some form of self-consciousness. We may

reflect on the action that we decided to take in the hope of gaining insight into the original affect,

or we might still be in a process of deciding what to do about our thoughts and feelings. The call

for expression is a call for self-development, even if, or perhaps especially if, the understanding

or expression defuses or alters the originating affect. Emotions do not burn themselves out; they

are reabsorbed and transformed for the sake of themselves being transformative. Emotions may

be privileged sites of experience in the development of self-understanding, but they are in no

way different from the normal life process of learning, adapting, and striving for improvement.

Of course, this process often becomes obstructed or stalled, and so emotions often become stuck

at the level of affect or impulse, but a theory of emotion necessarily takes a wider perspective.

The upshot of this theory of emotion, partly inspired by German Idealism (a precedent for

which can be found in Kant, as we shall see in chapter 3), is that emotions always call for

expression and for reflection. They are a part of the human process of moral/psychological

growth. Affect, thinking, and self-alteration are necessarily interconnected parts of a whole life:

trying to understand one in isolation from the whole necessarily yields a distortion.

We have seen that the idea that emotions tell us about our values does not tell us very

much, especially when we accept the claim that emotions are themselves wrapped up with and

are the target of moral evaluation. Most of the theorists who subscribe to “the information claim”

about emotion acknowledge that there can be bad, as well as good, emotions, but they do not

something like robot experience is possible. Third, it seems silly—like something out of Aristophanes’s The Clouds—to praise something that is so much a part of normal experience.

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attempt to tell us how to judge between the two. Just as emotion helps with moral decision-

making, moral decision-making must first help us to have good emotions. Therefore, we must let

a phenomenology of emotion lead us to ethics, provided that ethics is already reasonably

knowledgeable about emotions and open to learning more.

It is likely that these theories about subjective values do more than evade moral theory:

they implicitly and sometimes explicitly promote moral subjectivism. They oppose thinking that

something might be good or bad independently of subjective evaluation. In the case of emotions,

which call out for an inquiry about the best mode of action, this turn yields nothing but a dead-

end. Apparently, this is the consequence that moral theory’s perceived lack of attention to moral

psychology has caused. Correspondingly, we have seen a flood of attention to “context” and

“particularity,” and the relationship between the subjective and objective in ethics, along with

practical wisdom, which is said to be necessary to bridge this supposed gulf. In the following

chapters I argue that there is no such gulf, at least not in the guidance offered to our emotions

from Kantian moral theory. My view is that emotional intelligence is based on morality, not that

morality is based on emotion, and that moral subjectivism, even though it seems to affirm the

emotions, talks down to them and fails to take up the inherent challenge of self-improvement

posed by emotions. As we have seen, the study of emotion inevitably leads to the evaluation of

emotions. Such is the job of emotional intelligence, and the evaluation of emotions must look to

moral theory for help. This conclusion, I hope, is obvious, since it has long been recognized that

proper emotional engagement is necessary for virtue. What is new is the idea that this sense of

“proper” might be gestured toward by emotional experience itself, and that Kantian moral theory

can pick up where a study of emotion leaves off. The first idea is the subject of the following

chapter and a discussion of the second idea begins in chapter 3.

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CHAPTER II

THE MORAL IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The goal of this chapter is to clarify the relationship between moral theory and the

psychological construct of emotional intelligence. Since I assume that my readers will be

better read in philosophy than in psychology, I first introduce my reader to the notion of

emotional intelligence. No doubt my reader has already heard the term and has some

associations brought to mind by it, largely due to the prevalence of media attention given

to the idea in recent years. Some psychologists are positively giddy at the amount of

popular attention their field is receiving; others are suspicious and denounce the whole

notion as “pop psychology.” Since I believe that it is useful to employ the term, I must

necessarily engage this debate, reviewing the work that is being done on emotional

intelligence in order to clarify the concept. We shall see that there is a great deal of

disagreement between psychologists over the meaning of the term. I argue that some

theories that stand out for their accuracy, while others, like Daniel Goleman’s book

Emotional Intelligence (which led to the popularity of the term itself), are clearly

problematic.

I evaluate these approaches based on their theories of emotion and theories of

intelligence. The word “intelligence” itself poses a trap, of course, suggesting that

emotional intelligence might be innate and inalterable, since intelligence theories make

similar claims for cognitive intelligence. This essentialism promotes a defeatist attitude

about self-improvement as well as smugness for those who “make the grade.” There is

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widespread consensus about the purpose of a theory of emotional intelligence: it ought to

help individuals cultivate their own emotional intelligence, which should turn out to be a

good thing for both the individual and the group. Definitions that focus on the

unconscious and automatic nature of emotions prove unable to explain the means by

which people might become more emotionally intelligent. In other words, cultivating

emotional intelligence itself relies on having a good theory of emotional intelligence and

a good theory of emotion, while a poor theory of emotional intelligence hinders its

development. The idea that emotions must be “managed” and “controlled,” for example,

risks promoting self-inflicted violence in the form of self-management and self-

discipline.

After reviewing some of the ways that theories of emotional intelligence can go

astray, I focus on some of the better models, which have made considerable progress in

developing the notion of emotional intelligence. Ciarrochi’s idea of emotionally

intelligent behavior, for example, resists positing a latent, innate ability and instead

focuses on achieving psychological health. I understand “intelligence” in terms of

“understanding” and “analysis”; thereby emotional intelligence is the analysis and

understanding of emotions (including emotional thoughts, affects, and behaviors) that

leads to their morally and pragmatically good expression and resolution. Emotional

intelligence also involves empathy, i.e., intelligence not just about one’s own emotions

but also about the emotions of others, as well as the ability to interact emotionally and

about emotions with others. Again, the goal is to further pragmatic and morally good

outcomes. Emotional intelligence is something like virtue—a stable character trait that

we should develop—and it is thereby involved in promoting goodness, not just for

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oneself and one’s close associates, but for all people, although of course, to a different

extent and in different ways. When we see that emotional intelligence is like virtue, we

see that it makes sense to focus on self-improvement. It is only by continually focusing

on and seeking out the means by which we can improve that we will avoid associating

emotional intelligence with IQ and will see instead that it is a need for all people: anyone

who has emotions needs emotional intelligence. Also, a focus on improvement will bring

out the true variety of ways in which people can have and can lack emotional

intelligence.

The ultimate goal of this chapter is to show that emotional intelligence is

inherently a moral concept. My definition posits it as such, but I defend this definition

given the current work on the topic. Work on emotional intelligence dovetails with moral

inquiry in many places, as with school programs that teach conflict resolution and prevent

bullying. We shall see that moral inquiry lies at the heart of emotional intelligence.

Without moral guidance, it is impossible to delineate emotionally intelligent behaviors

from those that are emotionally coercive or sociopathic. In fact, any theory of emotional

intelligence requires normative claims; but psychologists, being scientists, are often not

comfortable navigating normative issues, and so they tend to emphasize the culturally

relative nature of the expression of emotion. Yet intelligence is itself a normative idea,

implying that having intelligence is better than lacking intelligence. In the absence of

“experts” to decide on the value of an outcome or behavior, it is common for theorists,

such as Goleman, to let the market, in the form of career success, decide the definition of

intelligence. Obviously, the market is no more “objective” than are human theorists, even

less so since it cannot give an account of its decision-making.

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Instead, moral theory and a philosophical notion of well being can and must guide

our search for emotional intelligence. It is the job of a philosopher to pick up where the

psychologists leave off, uncovering and clarifying their moral assumptions and

implications. Furthermore, the notion of emotional intelligence can inform moral theory.

As we shall see, since emotional intelligence involves the health and happiness of the

whole person and her ability to make good decisions, engage in healthy relationships, and

prevent and resolve conflicts, it makes little sense to command moral behavior without

commanding, and facilitating, emotional intelligence.

I: Heterogeneity Amongst Definitions of Emotional Intelligence

We begin with a survey of the current theories of emotional intelligence,

remarking on the heterogeneity of the various definitions. There really is no way to give

the current definition of emotional intelligence because there are so many definitions in

use. Matthews et al. recommend that we consider emotional intelligence as an “umbrella

term,” as it refers to a “variety of quite distinct constructs.”1 There are over sixteen

different tests used to measure emotional intelligence or something like it for the sake of

research, education, or profit. There is so much variety under this rubric that some

researches acknowledge the shared feeling for the need for a moratorium on new tests.2

In addition, there is little to no evidence that the tests correlate: the MSCEIT (Mayor

Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test) and the EQ-i (Emotional Quotient

1 Gerald Matthews et al., “What Is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence?” in A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed?, ed. Kevin Murphy (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 11. 2 Carolyn MacCann et al., “The Assessment of Emotional Intelligence: On Frameworks, Fissures, and the Future,” in Measuring Emotional Intelligence: Common Ground and Controversy, ed. Glenn Geher (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004), 26.

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Inventory) were shown to have a correlation of .20 in one study.3 Those critical of this

new construct argue that there is so much heterogeneity within approaches to the topic

that it is impossible to know the meaning of emotional intelligence at all, and that it is

misleading to suggest that there is one thing corresponding to the term that these different

tests measure.4 Because those working on emotional intelligence face these sorts of

criticisms, there is a tendency to close ranks and not criticize definitions different from

their own, even sometimes failing to acknowledge their lack of agreement. Nevertheless,

there are three prominent definitions of emotional intelligence: those by Salovey and

Mayer, Bar-On, and Goleman.

Salovey and Mayer originally defined emotional intelligence as “the subset of

social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and

emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking

and actions.”5 By “a subset of social intelligence,” they mean to refer to Thorndike’s

notion of social intelligence, “the ability to understand and manage people,” and thereby

they mean to tap into the history of work in intelligence studies.6 Salovey and Mayer’s

definition is often broken up into its constituent parts, so that emotional intelligence is

said to involve four distinct abilities: the ability to perceive and appraise emotion, the

ability to use emotion to facilitate thought, the ability to understand and communicate

3 Marc A. Brackett and John D. Mayer, “Convergent, Discriminant, and Incremental Validity of Competing Measures of Emotional Intelligence,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29, no. 9 (2003): 1147-1158. 4 See Matthews et al., “What Is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence?” 5Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, “Emotional Intelligence,” Imagination, Cognition and Personality 9, no. 3 (1989-1990), 189. 6 Edward L. Thorndike and S. Stein, “An Evaluation of the Attempts to Measure Social Intelligence,” Psychological Bulletin 34 (1937), 275-85.

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emotion concepts, and the ability to manage emotions in oneself and others.7 These

abilities are measured by the MSCEIT. Those who attempt to work with this definition

usually do one of two things: they either separate one of the abilities and study it in

isolation from the others, or they take the general idea suggested by this definition and

apply it to another field of research or therapeutic endeavor.

When breaking the definition into its component parts, Mayer and Salovey define

it as: “the ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion; the ability to

access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand

emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote

emotional and intellectual growth.”8 Yet the four parts are conceptually and practically

interrelated. The third ability, the ability to understand and analyze emotions, seems to

be only a more complete form of the first. When we insist that they are two separate

abilities, the first becomes a primitive ability, like the ability to read emotional

significance in vocal acoustics or facial expression.9 It is hard to imagine the third ability,

which is itself the better way of expressing the first, without the fourth: understanding

and analyzing emotions requires some theory about the nature of the emotion, which

includes implications about the value of specific emotions and the means by which they

ought to be expressed.

7 Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey, “Introduction,” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002), 2. 8 John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, “What is Emotional Intelligence?” in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence, ed. Peter Salovey and David J. Sluyter (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 10. 9 See Jo-Anne Bachorowski and Michael J. Owren, “Vocal Acoustics in Emotional Intelligence,” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002); and Hillary A. Elfenbein, Abigail A. Marsh, and Nalini Ambady, “Emotional Intelligence and the Recognition of Emotion from Facial Features,” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002).

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The second ability, the ability to “generate emotions,” could be more simply

worded as the ability to empathize; it seems that the conceptual divide is between the

second ability and the rest, between the ability to engage one’s own emotions and the

ability to engage the emotions of others. Perhaps someone who is more even-handed and

understanding of others, not being biased toward herself, ought to be also at an advantage

in her relationship with herself and able to understand her emotions more objectively.

Similarly, someone willing to engage her own emotions would be better equipped to

engage the emotions of others. Regardless of the connection, most theorists agree that

“emotional intelligence” should also refer to an understanding of the emotions of others,

whether this understanding is more immediate, in the form of sympathy, or theoretical, in

the form of empathy or merely a sensitive awareness.

On the other hand, the difference between generating and understanding emotion

might imply one difference in the experience of emotion that we discovered when we

considered cognitive and affective theories of emotion in chapter 1. Affective theories of

emotion highlight the ways that affects affect thoughts. The ability to generate emotion

might refer to the ability to self-consciously generate or regulate affects in order to

promote one’s goals, such as exercising to treat depression, drinking coffee for

intellectual focus, or breathing slowly to cope with stress. These cases are significantly

different than those cases wherein one assumes that affects contain latent meaning.

Moving on to the two other prominent definitions of emotional intelligence, we

have the “mixed” models. Those grappling with the heterogeneity among definitions

divide them into “ability-based” and “mixed” models. This categorization is a veiled

criticism of the “mixed” models, implying that they are nothing more than a grab bag of

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imagined traits and that, since they are measured by self-report, they are vulnerable to

self-report bias. Perhaps the idea is that they do not correspond to any actual “ability.”

Also, mixed models have been shown to overlap with measures of personality.10

The models of emotional intelligence developed by Bar-On and Goleman are both

characterized as “mixed.” Bar-On developed the emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i),

which is based on fifteen subscales and aims to predict the degree to which an individual

interacts with her environment in such a way as to promote her own psychological well

being. Bar-On defines emotional intelligence as “an array of noncognitive capabilities,

competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with

environmental demands and pressures.”11 Describing each of his subscales proves

tedious, so I will merely name them: self regard, self awareness, assertiveness,

independence, self actualization, empathy, social responsibility, interpersonal

responsibility, stress tolerance, impulse control, reality testing, flexibility, problem

solving, optimism, and happiness.12 While I do not disagree that these qualities are all

related to emotional intelligence, it seems counterproductive to give such an expansive

and enumerative definition. Some of these traits are at the heart of the matter and others

are merely symptoms that sometimes follow from emotional intelligence and sometimes

do not. The idea of “emotional self-awareness”—“the ability to recognize and understand

one’s emotions”—comes closest to the heart of the issue. I do agree, nonetheless, that, in

these terms, emotional intelligence would promote successful coping with stress,

especially as stress is often related to emotional “core-relational themes.”

10 M. Zeidner and G. Matthews, “Personality and Intelligence,” in Handbook of Human Intelligence, ed. R. J. Sternberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 11 Reuven Bar-On, Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: Technical Manual (Multi-Health System, 1997). 12 Reuven Bar-On and J. Parker, eds., The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Development, Assessment, and Application at Home, School and in the Workplace (Jossey-Bass, 2000), 365.

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Of course, if we want to equate emotional intelligence with emotional

understanding, with which is almost synonymous, we would need to have a robust notion

of understanding that includes everything that is meant by intelligence. Bar-On might

object that someone might be aware of his emotions and still not be able to respect or

express them and that we would not want to call that person emotionally intelligent. Such

is conceptually possible, but premised only on a vitiated notion of understanding an

emotion. Emotions contain layers of thoughts and information. To fully understand them,

or to be committed to trying to understand them, is already a form of acceptance and

expression, and involves analyzing the way that they should be further expressed. If we

think that emotions are always so easily understood and expressed, then we have

misunderstood the nature of emotion and the meaning of expression. For example, Pat

hates his job—let’s say he feels that the company is complicit in immoral deeds—but he

is not financially able to quit and knows that his family and friends would not support his

decision. He is likely to be sad and angry at his situation. Actually, if Pat is sad and

angry, he is relatively emotionally intelligent, since in this situation most people would

be motivated by the unconscious desire to reduce cognitive dissonance and would deny

or displace their sadness and anger, perhaps developing depression or an anxiety disorder

or transferring these emotions to another person or situation. The important matter is that

Pat remain confident in his understanding of his emotions, and that he not let external

pressures make him lie to himself or ignore his emotional insights. Acting on the

understanding of an emotion is not easy (What should Pat do?). Struggling to do so,

while resisting the urge to lie to oneself about the content of the emotion in order to avoid

addressing it, should be recognized as a genuinely difficult task.

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Returning to the question of whether or not Bar-On’s definition of emotional

intelligence is unnecessarily plentiful: Empathy, “the ability to be aware of, understand,

and appreciate the feelings of others,” is also a necessary component of emotional

intelligence, as Bar-On postulates. Nevertheless, it is possible that “the ability to establish

and maintain mutually satisfying relationships” comes from those qualities of emotional

confidence, such as not being afraid of one’s vulnerability, which may follow from self-

awareness, and that there is a sort of natural parallelism between the self and others, as

we shall explore more in chapter 4. Similarly flexibility, “the ability to adjust one’s

feelings…to changing situations and conditions,” follows from understanding one’s

feelings as well as knowing where one stands. Focusing on self-awareness and

understanding takes the emphasis off of “control,” but that is exactly my intention; as

well shall see, understandings of emotional intelligence that are based on cognitive

theories of emotion, unlike Bar-On’s and Goleman’s, make this possible.

Goleman has also developed a “mixed” model. Most people outside the field of

psychology associate the term “emotional intelligence” exclusively with Goleman’s

book, or with media attention to his. For this reason, other theorists, like Salovey and

Sluyter, use Goleman’s name to increase the popularity of their work while

simultaneously rejecting his notion of emotional intelligence.13 Goleman is well known

for his sweeping claims, such as the claim that emotional intelligence is more important

than IQ in determining life success. Working with Boyatzis and Rhee, Goleman has

developed a model that includes 25 different areas of competency.14 Clearly not aiming at

13 Peter Salovey and D. Sluyter, eds., Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications (Basic Books, 1997). 14 R. E. Boyatzis, D. Goleman, and K. Rhee, “Clustering Competence in Emotional Intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory,” in The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence: Theory,

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one coherent definition, he refers to emotional intelligence in a variety of different ways:

“self-control, zeal, persistence…the ability to motivate oneself”; “to reign in emotional

impulse; to read another’s innermost feelings; to handle relationships smoothly”; “to

persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulse and delay gratification, to regulate

one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to

hope.”15

Goleman suggests that emotional intelligence might also be called “character.” He

often relates it to life success, describing it as a “meta-ability, determining how well we

can use whatever other skills we have, including raw intellect”; he sometimes calls it

“people skills.”16 The benefits of emotional intelligence include being able to learn and

communicate effectively. Goleman’s positive description of emotional intelligence

centers on the increased learning potential that comes with something we might normally

call “having a good attitude.” He paints the picture of the contagiously good mood of a

bus driver as an example of emotions working to better our lives.

The bulk of Goleman’s discussion is dedicated to convincing his reader that

emotional intelligence is an important quality; he does this by illustrating the problems

that a lack of emotional intelligence may cause. Goleman describes those who lack

emotional intelligence as “those who are at the mercy of impulse—who lack self-

control.”17 Seemingly taking anger as the prime example of emotion, he posits that those

without emotional intelligence are those who “lose it” or are subject to an “emotional

Development, Assessment, and Application at Home, School and in the Workplace, ed. Reuven Bar-On and J. Parker (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000). 15 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, xii, xii, 34. 16 Ibid., 36-37. 17 Ibid., xii.

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hijacking.”18 His notion of a lack of emotional intelligence is even broader than his

notion of emotional intelligence, and includes marital discord, insensitivity and general

meanness, stress, abuse, trauma, and homicide. Given this laundry list of inarguably bad

things, it is very easy for Goleman to convince his reader that people would be better off

if they were schooled in emotional intelligence.

Goleman has worked with others to develop the “Emotional Competence

Inventory” (ECI). This is a personality-based approach, as opposed to an ability-based

measure, because it overlaps with traits measured by personality tests such as

conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and openness.19 The ECI measures

four dimensions of emotional competence: self-awareness, social awareness, self-

management, and social skills. Conte and Dean report that “no empirical, peer-reviewed

journal articles are presented to support the validity of the ECI.”20 They also conclude

that there is little evidence that the ECI is able to discriminate reliably between people or

to predict socially relevant outcomes.

Although there is disagreement over the definition of emotional intelligence, the

idea itself is in many ways nothing new. As Murphy and Sideman note “EI is often seen

as a new name for constructs that have been studied (sometimes with limited success) for

decades.”21 This repetition is the reason that many researchers give for believing that

emotional intelligence makes intuitive sense. It is also possible that the notion of

emotional intelligence is intuitive to psychologists because, as emotional intelligence 18 Ibid., 14. 19 Jeffrey Conte and Michelle Dean, “Can Emotional Intelligence Be Measured?” in A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed?, ed. Kevin Murphy (New York: Psychology Press, 2006). 20 Kevin Murphy and L. Sideman, “What Is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence?” in A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed?, ed. Kevin Murphy (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 63. 21 Murphy, A Critique, p. xii.

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presumably requires psychological insight—those who study emotion should hopefully

be able to increase our emotional intelligence—it is in the business of keeping

psychologists in business. Not only does emotional intelligence have a more recent

ancestor in the study of intelligence, in many ways it refers to the basic idea behind

clinical psychology: the idea that people can improve their lives by gaining insight into

their behaviors and motivations. For this reason, it seems preferable to turn away from

the construct of emotional intelligence in favor of terminology that is better situated

within the history of psychology. Most new work on emotional intelligence realizes this

need and attempts to connect emotional intelligence to traditional areas of research, such

stress, addiction, family and marriage relationships, child development, or personality

development.

II: Evaluating Theories of Emotional Intelligence

In order to hone the notion of emotional intelligence that will be used in this

project, I will consider a number of ways that theories of emotional intelligence can go

astray. I would like to distinguish my work from the problems associated with emotional

intelligence from the beginning, so that I will not be misunderstood. Singling out these

problematic notions will also help us to understand the necessary features of a good

working definition. By discussing the problems associated with some definitions we shall

see that a good definition will include the following traits:

1. A good definition will not fall into the trap of thinking that emotional intelligence,

like traditional notions of intelligence, is an innate and inalterable quality of a

person. Instead it will focus on the teachable knowledge that allows for

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emotionally intelligence behavior. It will acknowledge that all people, even—

perhaps especially—the most intelligent have trouble behaving with emotional

intelligence regarding certain intimate emotions and contexts, and that

improvement comes from understanding the individual’s specific emotional

history, rather than from knowing his or her score on a test for general emotional

intelligence.

2. A good definition will not insist on a dichotomy between cognition and affect.

Instead, it will seek to understand the ways that emotions are created by and

reciprocally influence many different mental faculties.

3. A good definition will not insist that emotions are outside of conscious influence.

Instead it will seek to understand the mental, as well as physical, dimension of

emotion and the ways that individuals can understand, act on, and alter their

emotions.

The second two points follow from the first. It may very well be the case that there is a

species of emotional intelligence that is innate. I do not think that there is, but I am not

concerned with disproving this idea. Instead, I argue that there is a kind of emotional

intelligence that we can cultivate, and that people can come to act with more or less

emotional intelligence and can go through experiences that can influence them either for

the worse or for the better. It is certainly strange for me to argue that emotional

intelligence is something corrigible before I seek to define emotional intelligence, but, as

we shall see, the definition rests on this point. Most theorists who are currently working

with this construct agree that it should be thought of as something that is corrigible, but

many do not see that this conviction disallows certain other convictions, such as the idea

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that emotions are purely affective and caused automatically by certain objective stimuli

(points 2 and 3).

The word “intelligence” connotes innateness. “Intelligence” is defined as an

“ability”; even though an ability is not necessarily an innate quality, the field of

intelligence studies has come to believe that intelligence is innate. Likewise, models of

emotional intelligence that posit it as an “ability” similarly imply that it is innate. As we

have seen, Salovey and Mayer’s model is “ability-based,” while Goleman and Bar-On’s

theories mix an ability-based account with other measures that largely track personality.

Researchers who study intelligence refer to it as g (general intelligence), the

element for which all tests of cognitive ability test, since there is a high correspondence

between any two tests of cognitive ability. Although IQ tests were first designed by

Spearman to measure educational achievement, intelligence has come to be thought of as

an inherited trait.22 G has become an infamous concept, as it is notoriously accused of

reductionism, determinism, racism, classism, and conservatism.23 Those who study

intelligence largely agree that it is genetically determined: twin and adoptive sibling

studies have demonstrated this.24

It is no surprise, then, that arguments against g and in favor of a broader, more

egalitarian notion of intelligence are popular. Gardner, Sternberg, and Goleman all offer

22 C. Spearman, “‘General Intelligence,’ Objectively Determined and Measured,” American Journal of Psychology 15 (1904): 201-293; A. Binet and T. Simon, “Methodes nouvelles pour le diagnostic du niveau intellectual des anormaux,” L’Annee Psychologique 11 (1905): 191-244. Brody argues that heritability is wrongly confused with immutability, where long-term population wide changes, known as the Flynn-effect, show that intelligence is malleable in principle. James Flynn, “IQ Gains Over Time: Towards Finding the Causes,” in The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures, ed. U. Neisser (Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1998), 25-66. 23 Stephen J. Gould’s popular The Mismeasure of Man (W. W. Norton & Co: 1996) makes a number of these arguments. 24 R. Plomin, J. C. DeFries, G. E. McClearn, and P. McGuffin, Behavioral Genetics, 4th ed. (New York: Freeman, 2001).

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such arguments. Gardner was the first to offer a model of multiple intelligences. He

posits a variety of different types of intelligence—at least eight kinds: logical, linguistic,

spatial, musical, kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal—rather than just the

logical and linguistic intelligence that is represented by g.25 Part of the social goal of this

theory is to change the educational system so that more children can succeed. Rather

ironically, the idea is not that intelligence is corrigible, but that teachers need to do a

better job drawing out the various innate forms of genius.26

Goleman takes himself to be working in the tradition of Gardner, but he takes his

notion of emotional intelligence to trump g.27 He attempts to steal the glory of the most

problematic versions of g by arguing that emotional intelligence determines success,

defined by health, interpersonal relationships, and job success. His later book, Working

with Emotional Intelligence, is designed to parlay the idea of emotional intelligence into

success for businesses. Like theories of traditional intelligence, Goleman’s notion of

emotional intelligence claims to predict success in the traditional, economic sense of the

term. Goleman argues that emotional intelligence is not innate, and he devotes a 25 Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (Basic Books, 1999). 26 See Thomas Armstrong, Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius (New York: Putnam, 1991). Not only is intelligence thought to constrain potential, discouraging educative effort, it ironically also dampens the effort spent on those thought to be intelligent. The accolade of “intelligent” logically serves to take attention away from students, and it may have this hidden deleterious effect (especially with parents). Although it is intended to secure them more attention, since intelligent students are more capable of learning on their own (even by Goleman’s definition), they would require less attention and one-on-one instruction. In reality, the idea of intelligence has no place in the classroom, where we must assume that all students need to be taught. See Nathan Brody, “Beyond g,” in A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed?, ed. Kevin Murphy (New York: Psychology Press, 2006); See also Harold Stevenson and James Stigler, Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing And What We Can Learn From Japanese And Chinese Education (New York: Touchstone, 1992). For a contrary argument see L. Cronbach and R. Snow, Aptitudes and Instructional Methods: A Handbook for Research on Interactions (New York: Irvington, 1977). 27 Much of the success and popularity of Goleman’s work can be explained in this way: Americans want to believe that they are above average in some way, and parents, especially, want to believe that their children are above average; the more kinds of intelligence there are, the more kids that get to count as intelligent. Here we can see that the vagueness and broadness of Goleman’s notion is actually its selling point, like a horoscope, giving people more ways in which they can identify with the definition.

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considerable amount of time to the current pedagogical attempts to inculcate it.

Nevertheless, much of the research from which he draws suggests that the qualities he

identifies with emotional intelligence are fixed throughout an individual’s life. Although

he stresses that emotional intelligence depends on our upbringing, defining it by its

relationship to IQ has the effect of inadvertently making it seem innate. Goleman falls

into this trap himself, referring the emotional intelligence differences among four-year-

olds, although surely a four-year-old is still learning how to understand and express her

emotions.28 Goleman makes clear that he intends his notion of emotional intelligence to

replace the traditional notion of intelligence when he writes:

At age four, how children do on this test of delayed gratification is twice as powerful a predictor of what their SAT scores will be as is IQ at age four… This suggests that the ability to delay gratification contributes powerfully to intellectual potential quite apart from IQ itself. (Poor impulse control in childhood is also a powerful predictor of later delinquency, again more so that IQ.)29

Goleman clearly hopes to show that EIQ can replace IQ.

28 Goleman identifies emotional intelligence with the ability to delay gratification and discusses an experiment designed to show that the degree of this ability is constant from age four on to late adolescence. This experiment tests four year-olds by asking them if they would rather have one marshmallow at the present time or wait fifteen to twenty minutes for two marshmallows. Reported in Yuichi Schoda, Walter Mischel, and Philip K. Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-Regulatory Competencies From Preschool Delay Gratification,” Developmental Psychology 26, no. 6 (1990). Those who choose to wait are labeled as possessing the ability to delay gratification. The researchers then correlated this ability with later traits, such as ability to cope with stress, concluding that those who exhibited the ability to delay gratification were better off later in life. Goleman uncritically accepts the methodology and conclusions of this study, writing: “which of these choices a child makes is a telling test; it offers a quick reading not just of character, but of the trajectory that child will probably take through life.” (P. 81.) Goleman goes further and suggests that this test illustrates the essence of emotional intelligence, which is self-control. Nowhere does Goleman suggest that instruction in marshmallow choice would be possible. 29 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 82; citing Jack Block’s unpublished manuscript from research conducted at UC Berkeley.

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Salovey and Mayer’s MSCEIT correlates modestly with g, as they believe it

should.30 They write, in the tradition of intelligence studies, that a “new” intelligence

ought to correlate with g to a moderate degree: “no correlation at all could suggest the

new ‘intelligence’ is so different that it is not an intelligence at all,”31 and a high degree

of correlation suggests that the new intelligence is not new at all. Salovey and Mayer

seem to be conflicted: they want to make sense of the notion by drawing on intelligence

models, but they insist that EI ought to be learnable, even when their intelligence-derived

notions turn out not to support such conclusions.32 Caruso, Beinn, and Kornacki doubt

that the MSCEIT model allows for corrigibility;33 yet Salovey and Mayer do not seem to

recognize this consequence of their association with IQ.34 Furthermore, as an “ability”

test, the MSCEIT supposedly measures latent ability. Salovey and Mayer have yet to

prove that said “ability” actually translates into concrete behaviors.35

Those who study general intelligence agree that it is highly stable over time and

that attempts to inculcate it have little long-term effect; yet all who study emotional

intelligence agree that it can and should be taught in public schools. If there is truly a

connection between g and emotional intelligence, it is not clear what it is. There is no

evidence that any definition of emotional intelligence is capable of replacing g as a

measure of ability or rivaling IQ as a construct that refers to the separate mental system

30 Brody draws this conclusion from research conducted by M. J. Schulte, M. J. Ree, and T. R. Caretta, “Emotional Intelligence: Not Much More than G and Personality” Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004): 1059-1068. 31 J.D. Mayer and P. Salovey, P. “What is emotional intelligence?” In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds). Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Implications for Educators (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 6. 32 Brody, “Beyond g,” (2006). 33 D. R. Caruso, B. Bienn, and S. A. Kornacki, “Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace,” in Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life (2nd edition), ed. J. Ciarrochi, J. Forgas and J. D. Mayer (Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2006), 202. 34 Murphy and Sideman (2006), 39. 35 Matthews et al., “What is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence?” 27.

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of emotion, especially since there is no evidence that there is a separate mental system of

emotional functioning in the first place.36 Damasio, as we saw in the previous chapter,

would reject this idea, arguing instead that there are separate systems of emotional and

cognitive processing. Those working within the field of emotional intelligence, on the

other hand, do not understand it as merely the experience and memory of pleasure and

pain.

If EIQ cannot replace IQ, as Goleman hopes that it can, and it cannot relate to

emotion as IQ does to cognition, then perhaps there is an internal relationship between g

and emotional intelligence, as Salovey and Mayer assume. Brody argues that it makes

sense to think that spatial visualization aids in working with emotional information just as

it has been shown to help in paragraph comprehension, and that “emotional intelligence is

likely to be one component of g, not a substitute for g.”37 It is also possible that some

minimal degree of intelligence is necessary for emotional intelligence. Another

possibility is that general intelligence does aid in emotional intelligence, because

emotions tend to be complex and understanding them can be just as difficult. On the other

hand, it is also possible that less intelligent people have less complex emotions, and

therefore have no more or less difficulty understanding them than intelligent people do.

At any rate, it is not clear that there is any real similarity between the two notions aside

from the term; models that are based on measurements for g have had trouble measuring

anything other than g. Some believe that, when intelligence and personality are controlled

36 Matthews et al., “What is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence?” 28. 37 Brody, Beyond g, 178-179.

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for, emotional intelligence, as it has henceforth been measured, cannot be shown to cause

social outcomes.38

While I am cynical about the motivation behind the idea of multiple intelligences,

I am not interested in whether or not such a thing as g, or its various replacements, exists.

Still, the idea of general intelligence implies genetic heritability, while emotional

intelligence is believed to be corrigible. We must go beyond ability-based and mixed

models in order to account for this corrigibility.

Promising work is being done in this regard, often dropping the name of

“emotional intelligence” and using terms such as “emotional literacy” and “emotionally

intelligent behavior” instead. These theories of emotional intelligence excel in their

careful self-distancing from the tradition of intelligence studies. For example, Ciarrochi

et al. insist that we should be referring to “emotionally intelligent behavior,” not a latent

ability.39 They describe emotional intelligence not as excelling, but rather as achieving

normalcy or health in a world in which “33% of people have a diagnosable mental

disorder and 50% of us seriously contemplate suicide at some point in our lives…[and in

which] we have developed increasingly inventive ways to wage war and kill one

another.”40 They define emotional intelligence in terms of peace and happiness, and the

addressed emotional needs that make these possible. Although they do not deny the

ability component of emotional intelligence, they choose to focus on emotionally

intelligent behavior because they believe that such a focus is more productive:

38 Nathan Brody, “What Cognitive Intelligence Is and What Emotional Intelligence Is Not,” Psychological Inquiry 15 (2004): 234-238. 39 J. Ciarrochi et al., “Improving Emotional Intelligence: A Guide to Mindfulness-Based Emotional Intelligence Training,” in Applying Emotional Intelligence, ed. J. Ciarrochi and J. Mayer (New York: Psychology Press, 2007). 40 Ciarrochi et al., 89.

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Simply put, emotionally unintelligent behavior occurs when emotions and thought impede effective action, and emotionally intelligent behavior occurs when emotions and thoughts do not impede effective action, or when they facilitate effective action.41

I agree with this definition, as long as it is not taken to lead back to Goleman’s way of

defining emotional intelligence as the rational mind’s control over the emotional mind.

Emotionally intelligent behaviors occur when the emotions are present and addressed and

thereby lead to a greater understanding of the people and the situation at hand.

Others prefer the word “competency” or “literacy” to “intelligence” in order to

focus on learning. Brackett and Katulak discuss “emotional literacy” and argue that

having an emotional vocabulary enhances one’s ability to think about emotions and

engage in emotionally intelligent behavior.42 They also mean to call to mind something

like “emotional fluency,” or a kind of comfort and ease with having emotions. Saarni and

Buckley have developed the notion of “emotional competence” in order to focus on

learnable skills: “The skills of emotional competence are learned; their acquisition is

influenced by family, peers, school, media, societal scripts, and folk theories of how

emotion ‘works’.”43 Furthermore, they eschew the tendency to think in terms of rational

mastery and stable dispositions by emphasizing the fact that emotions always take place

in the context of a fluid relationship:

Emotional competence is not solely about cognitive understanding of emotional experience, but subsumes a set of affect-oriented behavioral, cognitive, and regulatory skills that emerge over time as a person develops in a social context. In other words, how our emotional functioning develops in a social context, how it is revealed in our everyday life

41 Ciarrochi et al., 90. 42 Marc A. Brackett and N. Katulak, “Emotional Intelligence in the Classroom: Skill-Based Training for Teachers and Students,” in Applying Emotional Intelligence, ed. J. Ciarrochi and J. Mayer (New York: Psychology Press, 2007). 43 M. Buckley and C. Saarni, “Skills of Emotional Competence: Pathways of Development,” in Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life, 2nd edition, ed. J. Ciarrochi, J. Forgas, & J. Mayer (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 52.

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depends on the ongoing exchange between a person and her environment. Individual factors, such a cognitive development and temperament, do indeed influence the development of emotional competencies. Yet, skills of emotional competence are also influenced by past social experiences, and learning, including an individual’s relationship history, as well as the system of beliefs and values in which the person lives. Thus, we actively create our emotion experience, through the combined influence of our cognitive developmental structures and our social exposure to emotion discourse. Through this process we learn what it means to feel something and to do something about it.44

This focus on one’s developmental history and ongoing relationships helps us to get at

the heart of emotional intelligence, and to that which is involved and at stake in

developing and maintaining it.45

Ciarrochi’s notion of emotionally intelligent behavior provides an interesting

contrast to Goleman’s notion of emotional intelligence. Goleman believes that emotional

intelligence causes life success; Ciarrochi does too, but he clearly means something

different by success than Goleman does. It seems odd to suggest a relationship between

emotional intelligence and job performance.46 There is, in fact, no support for this claim

in its broadest form. There is some evidence that emotional intelligence, as it is measured

by a short version of the MEIS, correlates with customer service skills, although perhaps

at the expense of productivity.47 It is perhaps easy to confuse the idea of emotional

intelligence with the idea of “people skills,” as does Goleman, and it is perhaps strange

that his model of emotional intelligence demonstrates an overlap with the personality trait

of extraversion. Furthermore, the dimension of EI related to “understanding emotions”

44 Buckley and Saarni, “Skills of Emotional Competence,” 55-56. 45 Fitness notes that it only takes one emotionally intelligence partner to bring emotional intelligence to a marriage. This supports the conclusion that emotional intelligence is learnable. J. Fitness, “The Emotionally Intelligent Marriage,” in Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life (2nd Edition), ed. J. Ciarrochi, J. Forgas, and J. Mayer (New York: Psychology Press, 2006). 46 See Matthews et al., “What is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence,” for a review of the literature. 47 A. E. Feyerherm and C. L. Rice, “Emotional Intelligence and Team Performance: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” International Journal of Organizational Analysis 10 (2002): 343-362.

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has been shown to correlate with the tendency to fake positive emotions.48 It seems more

intuitive to think that emotional intelligence should correlate with job success in jobs that

require emotional labor, such as the helping professions. Emotional labor is defined as

“managing emotion in the service of one’s job.”49 We would hope that emotional

intelligence correlates with less job stress in the case of work that requires a considerable

amount of emotional labor, such as those who work with children or adults who are not

fully responsible. Clearly, there is a difference between faking positive emotions while

suppressing negative emotions in order to coerce a customer, and consciously attempting

to defer one’s own anger and frustration for the sake of helping others uncover the root

cause of their emotions, in order to resolve a conflict. Basing a notion of emotional

intelligence on traditional intelligence, conceived in terms of g, blurs this distinction. It is

also quite likely that a morally informed notion of emotional intelligence will correlate

negatively with job success in many careers, since many occupations demand immoral

and psychologically unhealthy behavior from their employees. Only a morally informed

notion of emotional intelligence can adequately discriminate between different notions of

“success.”

Now that we have shown that those theories of emotional intelligence that are

modeled on theories of g cannot allow for corrigibility, we can move on to the next

characteristic of a good definition: that it be based on a theory of emotion that holds that

emotions involve both affect and cognition. Theories of emotional intelligence that align

48 T. Cage, C. S. Daus, and K. Saul, “An Examination of Emotional Skill, Job Satisfaction, and Retail Performation,” presented at the 19th Annual Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology (Washington, DC, 2005); discussed in Daus (2006). 49 See A. R. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983). See Daus (2006) for a discussion of emotional labor and emotional intelligence.

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emotion exclusively with affect similarly posit emotions to be out of the subject’s control.

Hence they inadvertently undermine corrigibility.

Beginning with the first point, Salovey and Mayer posit that emotions ought not

to be held in distinction from cognition: “we view emotions as organized responses,

crossing the boundaries of many psychological subsystems, including the physiological,

cognitive, motivational, and experiential systems.”50 Later, they argue “definitions of

emotional intelligence should in some way connect emotions with intelligence,” as the

mind is divided into the cognitive, affective and conative subsystems.51 In this later work

they describe their definition of emotional intelligence as a combination of “the ideas

that emotion makes thinking more intelligent and that one thinks intelligently about

emotions. Both connect intelligence and emotion.”52 It is unclear whether or not they

wish to consistently maintain that the emotions in themselves ought to be conceived of as

distinct from cognition and motivation, since their new definition remains vague on the

key point of the theory of emotion. Emotions can make thinking more intelligent because

they focus or facilitate thought, perhaps through emotional states of mind that are

conducive to thinking, or because they provide useful, emotional information for thought.

One can think intelligently about emotions by analyzing and better grasping the thought-

content of emotions, or one can think intelligently about emotions by attempting to

control them. Salovey and Mayor’s insight that the definition of emotional intelligence

should connect the notion of emotion with the notion of intelligence is important, but that

still does not tell us enough about what emotional intelligence entails.

50 Salovey and Mayer, “Emotional Intelligence” (1990). 51 Salovey and Mayer, “What Is Emotional Intelligence?” 4. 52 Ibid., 5.

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Considering the problems with Goleman’s non-cognitive account will help to

illuminate the reasons that a good theory of emotional intelligence must be based on a

cognitive theory of emotion in order to ensure that it provides for the possibility of

rationally instructive content. If the emotions are purely affective reflexes, then there is

no possibility of internally merging emotion and intelligence; we are left only with the

possibility of “controlling” our emotions, which is theoretically and psychologically

problematic. Still, Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence replays the popular

stereotypes of and biases against emotionality; this is likely the very reason that it has

achieved such widespread popularity.

Goleman believes that emotions come from and represent a distinctly different

part of the mind than does rational thought. This view is what Jagger calls “The Dumb

View” because it assumes that emotions are, in themselves, unintelligent.53 Goleman

employs the popular clichés of “head” and “heart” to refer to “the rational mind” and “the

emotional mind.” In an appendix devoted to explaining his theory of emotion, Goleman

posits that there are two types of emotional responses: those in which thoughts come first

and those in which physiological responses come first. He devotes the most attention to

the latter and gives acting, as with the tears brought on by an actress on stage, as an

example of the former. His main argument is that the rational mind can be “hijacked” by

the emotional mind and that the rational mind must fight back to subdue these irrational

forces. Tellingly, Goleman is not able to find any flaw in dealing with one’s emotions

through repression.54

53 Jagger, Alison. “Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology” in Gender, Body, Knowledge. Alison Jagger and Susan R. Bordo (eds.). Rutgers University Press, 1989. 54 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 75-77.

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Goleman argues that we can understand the dichotomy between “head” and

“heart” scientifically, in conjunction with the fact the brain has different parts. This

assumption is common in neurobiology, as we have seen from the last chapter’s

discussion of Damasio and as we will see with Goleman’s reliance of the neurological

theories of LeDoux. This dichotomy relies on an “evolutionary” argument; Goleman

considers the brain stem to be the less evolved and more emotional part of the brain.55

Goleman writes that the brain stem and neocortex can be “at war” with each other.56

Following, LeDoux, Goleman believes that emotions evolved to give the organism a

quick way to respond to danger by bypassing conscious thought. “Because it takes the

rational mind a moment or two longer to register and respond than it does the emotional

mind, the ‘first impulse’ in an emotional situation is the heart’s not the head’s.”57 This

leaves to the “rational mind” the role of controlling emotions after they occur, as a kind

of damage-control. The assumption is that, because we no longer live in the Pleistocene,

emotions are no longer adaptive. After an “emotional hijacking,” the rational mind is left

to make sense of what happened, and it usually attempts to rationalize the occurrence.58

Goleman’s account not only portrays emotions as primitive and simplistic

responses; it relies on the assumption that emotions are, in civilized society, often wrong

about their object. Emotions need to be “controlled” because they should not be heeded.

They should not be heeded because they are maladaptive and simplistic. So, for example,

there might be an emotional impulse to kill someone who has threatened our child, but

55 Ibid., 10. 56 Ibid., 9. We will see that Goleman tends to translate LeDoux’s findings into a more extreme dichotomy than they suggest. For example, Goleman finds evidence for the fact that we have “two minds” from the fact that “emotional areas are intertwined via myriad connecting circuits to all parts of the neo-cortex.” Ibid., 12. 57 Ibid., 293. 58 Ibid., 296

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since we no longer live in an environment of predators, this emotional impulse is

mistaken, and so must be overridden.

Yet, one of Goleman’s examples of an “emotional hijackings” seems to be better

described as a case of being startled. Goleman gives the example of “Matilda Crabtree,”

who was shot by accident by her father because she jumped out from a closet and yelled

“boo” while her parents had been expecting to see an intruder in the house.59 It would be

odd to say that her father had intended to shoot a burglar but had been mistaken. It seems

more likely that his startle response caused him to pull the trigger involuntarily, perhaps

even jerking his finger on the trigger for him. Can we really say that the father should

have or could have better controlled his emotions, that he should not have been afraid that

there was an intruder in his house and should not have been startled by his daughter

jumping out at him? We might say that he should not have intended to kill the burglar,

had it been a burglar, and then he would not have been prepared to shoot, or that he

should not have had a gun in the house at all; but those conclusions seem to be merely

changing the subject. I think most of us would agree that it seems strange to say that “Mr.

Crabtree’s” accidental killing of his daughter was an emotional act, exactly because it

was not accompanied by any beliefs or intentions; it was an accident.

If we assume, against Goleman, that most emotions, which are usually very

different than the case of being startled, are neither simplistic nor wrong-headed, i.e., if

we assume that emotions contain an element of “cognition” even in an unconscious form,

we have a different, more enlightening picture of the situation. First off, anger is not

really an impulse to kill someone. If the person in question really thinks about killing,

special therapeutic attention is necessary. Anger is an impulse to act based on a 59 Ibid., 4.

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perception of a need to act. Perhaps there is something to the argument that speed is

needed, but as we saw from the last chapter’s discussion about the relationship between

perception and cognition, there is no reason to conclude that cognition cannot have a

quick-moving manifestation in impulse. Goleman would argue that it is the anger itself

that is prone to irrationality, but a simple impulse cannot account for the kind of

complicated perceptions, thoughts, and disagreements that usually accompany an anger.

Ignoring the role that “cognition” plays in the impulse makes the impulse look less

complex than it is. Anger should not be seen as an “emotional hijacking;” it is a healthy

and important emotional response.

Salovey and Mayer similarly criticize the notion of an “emotional hijacking,” as it

merely replays the simplistic stereotype of emotions as an “intrinsically irrational and

disruptive force.” Instead, as we can see in the revised example of an “emotional

hijacking” the disruption of thought that emotion entails may or may not be useful, but it

is always meaningful, and is no more likely to be mistaken than is an explicit judgment.60

It is not surprising that this folk understanding of emotion as “hijacking” is so

pervasive. I venture that negative emotions, since they call us to change something about

the environment and are themselves painful experiences, are inherently prone to

resistance, and that the easiest way to avoid expressing them is to deny their

meaningfulness. The problem is that anti-cognitive views implicitly, although perhaps

unintentionally, encourage this type of repression.

Goleman’s theory of the emotions as primitive responses is really more of a

picture of a primitive emotional response, or of someone who lacks the ability to

understand the meaning and importance of her emotions and feels overwhelmed by them. 60 Salovey and Meyer, “What is Emotional Intelligence?” 9.

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The theory of the brain at war with itself is really a picture of a person at war with

himself. In other words, Goleman’s theory of emotion serves us by offering a glimpse

into the world of emotional un-intelligence. Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence

is doubly wrong: wrong about the emotions and wrong because it cannot promote

emotional intelligence. The sort of person who has an explosive temper and reacts by

attempting to then hold his anger in because he is trying to practice Goleman’s theory of

emotional intelligence may be “controlling” the emotion, but he is not making progress in

understanding it and is not demonstrating an emotionally intelligent behavior.

We should not follow Goleman in his talk of “controlling” and “mastering”

emotions. In addition to overlooking the important and positive role that emotions play in

our lives, this approach precludes the intuitive likelihood that emotions themselves

contain rational directives, i.e., that they might themselves be intelligent. Instead,

emotional intelligence should be cast as understanding, not controlling, emotions. Talk of

“understanding” underscores the ways that reason and the emotions are related and on a

continuum; talk of “mastering” reinforces the unfounded idea that they are two

substantively different faculties. Ciarrochi et al. point out that it is exactly the strong

repressive reactions that individuals have to their emotions that need to be overcome in

striving for psychological health.61

Goleman’s affective theory of emotion is largely based on LeDoux’s work on

conditioned fear responses in rats, and, for this reason, it relies on the strange idea that

emotional responses are largely “unconscious.” In his book, The Emotional Brain,

LeDoux explains the brain pathways that allow for “unconscious” fear conditioning: the

amygdala can transmit information from the visual or auditory systems to the thalamus 61 Ciarrochi et al., 2007.

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and bypass the cortex, and, hence, consciousness.62 Studies have shown that people can

become conditioned to respond to unconscious or subliminal stimuli.63 For example, by

administering a puff of air into the eye, triggering a blink, at the same time that an image

is presented for a fraction of a second (too quick to be registered in consciousness), the

subject becomes conditioned to blink at the subliminal image even when the air puff is

turned off. 64 LeDoux concludes from these studies that the emotion of fear response,

which includes freezing, increased blood pressure, release of stress hormones and the

startle reflex, is based on an unconscious neurological process. LeDoux speculates about

the relevance of the unconscious fear response to the psychological disorders of phobia,

PTSD, and panic attacks, suggesting in each case the likelihood that a subcortical

(unconscious) neural pathway is involved.65 He hypothesizes that “because of genetic

predisposition or past experiences, phobic learning [might] involve the subcortical

pathway to a greater extent than the cortical pathway.”66

62 We ought not to overlook the fact that LeDoux’s work shows that a slower, cortical response is necessary to judge whether or not there is a legitimate reason to be afraid. An unconscious process may cause the physical fear response, but there is no reason to privilege the physical fear response in our discussion of the nature of fear. Also, the fact that a process is subcortical, or unconscious, does not mean that it does not contain a latent judgment: we usually become afraid because we believe that there is some reason to be afraid, even though we might not know what that reason is as soon as we feel fear. 63 LeDoux discusses these studies on pages 53-70, including work by Zyjonc (1980), Bornstein (1992), Bruner and Postman (1947), Erdelyi (1974, 1985, 1992), Greenwald (1992), McGinnies (1949), Dixon (1971), Lazarus and McCleary (1951), Packard (1957), Eagly and Chaiken (1993), Murphy and Zyjonc (1993), Ionescu and Erdeli (1992), Bowers (1994), Bowers and Meichenbaum (1984), Shervin et al (1992), Shervin (1992), Bargh (1990, 1992), Jocoby et al (1992), Merikle (1992), Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, and Tataryn (1992b). 64 Specifically the eye-blink conditioning: Warrington and Weiskrantz (1973). 65 LeDoux’s use of fear conditioning is out of place in the case of phobia and panic disorders, since it is not clear that in those cases an original fear conditioning event is necessary. Insofar as humans are not normally subjected to subliminal stimuli, much less subliminal conditioning, it is difficult to show that the results from tests about subliminal conditioning sufficiently generalize. Furthermore, we must question whether or not LeDoux is right to generalize from the fear response to fear-based emotions. We must not forget that LeDoux is hoping to apply a case of learning, where stimuli are repeated over and over thus strengthening the correlate neural pathways, to a case where the unconditioned stimulus was only experienced once, if at all. 66 LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 254.

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We saw in the previous chapter that calling an emotion “unconscious” can refer to

a number of different phenomenon, depending on the theoretical approach, but LeDoux’s

conclusion that the conditioned fear response is “unconscious” rests on a confusion.

Drawing from experiments involving subliminal stimuli and rats, he confuses the notion

of self-consciousness, which we normally de facto deny to animals, with conscious

awareness. The idea is that since animals have the fear response and animals are not

“conscious” (meaning self-conscious, since, of course the animals experience their lives,

at least for the first part of his experiments), then it follows that the fear response must be

“unconscious.” Therefore, in humans, processes of the “animal brain,” which, operating

“below” the neo-cortex (the special human brain part of self-consciousness), must

similarly be “unconscious.” In likening the human brain to animal brain (the only kind of

brain allowed in the laboratory for these kinds of experiments), and by assuming that

animal brains lack “consciousness” because they lack language, neurological theories of

emotion tend to focus on the animalistic, or purely physical, elements of emotion.

Taking the physiological fear response as his primary example of emotion,

LeDoux hopes to generalize from fear to all emotions in arguing that emotions should be

understood as bodily—not conscious—events. Yet it is a mistake to think that something

is unconscious just because it is physical. Surely even conscious thoughts are bodily

processes! LeDoux does not argue for the idea that most, or even some, human emotions

are not registered in consciousness; instead this conclusion seems to follow from the

assumption that emotions are best understood by identifying them with neurological

processes. He defines consciousness as working memory and as activity in the cortex, but

he does not prove that our awareness of bodily states correlates to either of these things.

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We are obviously aware of the fear response, and so LeDoux must have another meaning

of “unconscious” in mind. Instead, he equates consciousness with the ability to “control”

an emotion. A general LeDouxian theory of emotion would draw from the idea of

emotional memory: the emotional memory encompasses all of the automatic emotional

responses that we have that are conditioned from past events.67

We can see that Goleman obtains his assumption that emotions usually involve

mistaken judgments from LeDoux. Insisting that an emotional response is unconscious

also means, for LeDoux, that the emotion is not just non-rational, but irrational. When

discussing the fact that emotions tend to preoccupy us (“are accompanied by intense

cortical arousal”), LeDoux explains that this might have been useful for an animal in the

Pleistocence, but is a nuisance for humans.68 Perhaps LeDoux would have it that, in the

case where the fear trigger is conditioned, the emotion is also “irrational” since it is now

divorced from its natural, unconditioned cause. It would then make sense, on LeDoux’s

model, to call the response “unconscious” since it would not make it through the cortical

fear circuit and would therefore need to rely entirely on the subcortical process.69 Yet, the

mere fact that an emotion is irrational does not make it any less cognitive, since many

thoughts are irrational. Ironically, in cases where people are not aware of the cause of (or

reason for) a case of generalized anxiety of phobia we have even more reason to believe

that there is an, albeit latent, cognitive content to the affect. Of course, if we think

67 In the effort to show that the emotional memory and declarative memory are distinct, LeDoux discusses studies done on amnesiacs, showing that they are still capable of fear conditioning though they are not capable or remembering the original unconditioned stimulus. 68 LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 289. 69 Still there is not as much evidence that the cortical and subcortical pathways are distinct as LeDoux would like. Even LeDoux recognizes that rabbits cannot be trained to respond only to a certain tune and not another only when their cortexes have not been damaged; this fact suggests that conceptual discrimination plays a role in the “automatic” fear response even for animals, as we know that it does for humans from experience.

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emotions are irrational or evolutionarily outdated, it is easier to ignore their cognitive

content, making analysis look futile. Again, for this reason, a good theory of emotional

intelligence holds open the possibility for emotions to become conscious. In this vein,

Parrott argues that the view that takes negative emotions to be usefully analyzed allows

for their greater functional utility and should therefore be more associated with emotional

intelligence.70

Goleman and LeDoux are not able to formulate the idea of latent cognitive

content, and so do not consider more complex ways that emotions might be

“unconscious.” In these theories, as we have seen, there is a clear distinction between the

“heart” and the “head,” or the amygdala and the neocortex. Freud’s notion of the

“preconscious,” or latent conscious thoughts (a sort of unconscious consciousness),

which is popular in cognitive science as well as in the history of philosophy, may help us

connect emotions to their cognitive content. Similarly, Freud’s notion of repression may

help us make sense of emotions of which we are only partially or not at all conscious but

which still affect behavior.71 It is ironic that LeDoux takes himself to be verifying Freud:

Freud’s unconscious is bodily, but it is also cognitive.

There is some danger is moving directly from neurology to psychology. In some

ways these two approaches are incommensurable. Neurology examines the material cause

of emotions: the brain and limbic system. The brain contains and brings about the

mechanisms “underlying emotion,” as Rolls phrases it. Psychology examines the formal 70 W. G. Parrot, “The Functional Utility of Negative Emotions,” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002). 71 Many times people know cognitively that they are having a certain emotion, say nervousness, and will speculate calmly that they are having that emotion for a reason that makes perfect sense, and yet they will fail to connect that feeling to their everyday conscious decisions and behaviors, though an outside observer would clearly judge that they are connected. This behavior might come close to having an unconscious emotion, though the feeling is very much the purview of our conscious/mental lives.

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causes of emotions, the conceptual content that informs the essence of an emotion. As we

discussed in the previous chapter, neurology takes on a third-person, physicalist

perspective. A person might take this perspective on herself, and she does in the case of

physical processes such as pain; we want to know about the physical processes at work in

our bodies so that we can manipulate them. An emotion does have a physical basis, as do

thoughts, but that does not mean that we need to take a physicalist perspective in order to

engage them. We often do manipulate our emotions in this indirect way, but as we have

seen, the neurological approach, since it does not study the introspective, conscious

dimension of emotion, has the tendency of not only overlooking it but denying its

existence entirely. LeDoux takes an unnecessarily extreme stance against the idea that the

emotions are “conscious” processes: he disparages introspection and argues that

“introspective knowledge provides a highly inaccurate window into the mind.”72 To

interact with one’s emotions, indeed, with oneself, in this purely one-sided way is very

strange: this is surely the perspective of an outsider, not of the subject herself. Yet this

approach is perhaps not so strange when we examine the history of philosophy and

Christianity, which take the mind and the body to be two separate substances. (In this

way, the theory of emotional intelligence might find itself up against a good part of the

history of Western thought.)

A neurological foundation for the notion of emotional intelligence risks

undermining one of the key aspects of the idea: the idea that people can become more or

less emotionally intelligent. Even Goleman, whose attention is clearly directed toward

developing emotional education programs, makes the mistake of summarizing emotional

72 LeDoux attempts to redefine “talk-therapy” as a way to enact neurological cures: “These observations give us a different kind of understanding of therapy. Therapy is just another way of creating synaptic potentiation in brain pathways.” LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 245, 265.

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disorders in terms of neurological disorders. His discussion is peppered with “insights”

from current pharmacology and neurology, treating the physical basis of the emotion as if

it were the proximal cause.73 If differences in emotional intelligence are only explainable

as differences in brain chemistry, little can be done to change individual abilities other

than pharmacological or surgical intervention. In giving an example of the way that

“continual emotions distress can create deficits in a child’s intellectual abilities,” he

writes:

In one study, for example, primary school boys who had above-average IQ but nevertheless were doing poorly in school were found via these neuropsychological tests to have impaired frontal cortex functioning. They also were impulsive and anxious, often disruptive and in trouble—suggesting faulty prefrontal control over their limbic urges. Despite their intellectual potential, these are the children at highest risks for problems like academic failure, alcoholism, and criminality—not because their intellect is deficit but because their control over their emotional life is impaired.74

The skeptical consumer asks “why is the frontal cortex of these boys impaired?” but it is

more often the case that “impaired functioning,” which is a neurological basis of an

emotional state, is taken to be the cause of the problem and that such a cause seems to

require a neurological solution. Indeed, Goleman goes no further than this suggestion. It

is especially difficult to pass beyond neurological bases in our culture because we often

lack the resources for any other kind of intervention. Families are becoming more and

more isolated from one another and so more and more responsibility falls on parents (or

one parent) for modeling behavior. Schools lack resources and are not reliable sources of

73 We see the common flaw in the logic of neuroscience in the following: Goleman writes: “by the logic of neuroscience, if the absence of a neural circuit leads to a deficit in an ability, then the relative strength or weakness of that same circuit in people whose brains are intact should lead to comparable levels of competence in that same ability.” It is quite possible, on the other hand, that the brains of brain-damaged people do not work the same way that normal brains do. 74 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, 27.

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traditional education, much less psychological education. Even if a pediatric neurologist

were trained in child and parent psychology, which would be extremely rare, she would

find it impossible to tell parents that their parenting styles have caused “impaired frontal

cortex functioning” and that they ought to try be better models of healthy emotional

behavior.75 Surely, it is easier to write a prescription. Similarly, Goleman does not

compare the benefits of implementing emotional intelligence education programs over

simply medicating the children.

LeDoux similarly suggests medical manipulation of brain chemistry in order to

change one’s emotions. For example, since the fear response is facilitated by the body’s

production of adrenaline, he suggests:

[R]escue workers and soldiers in battle are often traumatized by the memories of the horrific scenes they witness. Perhaps, it may be possible, immediately after the experience, to block the effects of the adrenaline and spare them the effects of the anguish later.76

LeDoux does not consider the likely moral and social consequences of further

emotionally numbing soldiers. He also does not consider the moral question of whether

or not people who witness horrific events should feel horrified. Is it possible to lessen the

emotional disturbance without lessening its moral significance? Is it possible to make a

drug that makes it easier for people to kill other people and ensure that it is only used for

morally necessary killing? These are the kinds of moral questions that demonstrate that a

theory of emotional intelligence must be based in moral theory. We will return to this

75 Of course, it is much easier to blame the parents when the parent is the mother since women have the tendency to react with sadness rather than anger at an affront. Furthermore, when the responsible for child-rearing falls solely on the mother, she is the most obvious one to blame, even though it is not a reasonable expectation that one person could take on this responsibility herself. 76 LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 207.

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connection after we reflect on the forgoing considerations and use them to make the

definition of emotional intelligence as clear and accurate as possible.

III: Summary of A Good, Working Definition of Emotional Intelligence

After this consideration of the ways that we can evaluate different theories of

emotional intelligence, it is time for me to pledge my allegiance to a good, working

definition. A preliminary definition of emotional intelligence might sound something like

this: emotional intelligence is the analysis and better understanding of one’s own

emotions for the sake of acting on and expressing those emotions for the sake of seeking

good outcomes and psychological well-being, as well as understanding and discussing the

emotions of others in the same pursuit and, additionally, creating an emotionally open

and healthy environment that promotes emotional intelligence for all.77

Analysis, understanding, and expression are the meanings of “intelligence” that

apply to emotional experience. These are behaviors that can be called “intelligent,” both

in the honorific and in the cognitive sense; they are not latent abilities. This definition is

based on the theory of emotion that was explored in the previous chapter: it does not take

“intelligence,” vis a vis emotion, to be a function of only one mental subsystem, or “part”

of the mind, but exactly the site of interaction between the mind and body, cognition and

affect, abstract moral evaluation and concrete needs. It includes the ways that emotions

can be intelligent and the ways that intelligence can be emotional, but it also strives to

overcome a compartmentalized theory of subjectivity in the service of speaking to the

quality of lived experience.

77 Please see chapter 1 for a discussion of everything that might be involved in the “expression” of an emotion.

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Emotional intelligence can involve all of the various individual directions of

causality. For example, Daus, who defends ability models of emotional intelligence,

argues that emotional intelligence ought to be construed as cognition directed at emotion,

or using emotions as information.78 This might be one part of emotional intelligence, as it

is one way that the emotions and intelligence interact, but it does not capture the whole of

the definition and is deficient if taken in isolation. In the previous chapter, I discussed

what it known as “the information claim” about emotion. Focus on “using emotions” as

information to enhance cognition reifies the dichotomy between emotion and cognition.

Affective “information” has a shoddy meaning if it is used to refer to feelings that have

not yet been translated into well-grounded reasons79 or using emotional response

categorization, which is little more than prejudice and bias. These “emotional”

categorizations may be effective for making quick decisions, but they are morally

problematic.80 (We will see this argument again in Kant’s criticism of sympathy.) There

are a plurality of ways that the emotions interact with intelligent understanding; each of

them can and should play a part in emotional intelligence, as long as it is based on a

sufficiently wide model of emotional life.

Those working within the field of psychology are, of course, not satisfied with

simply giving a definition. A definition of a “psychological construct” should lead to a

way to measure it. A construct is only sufficiently scientific if it can be measured with

78 She contrasts this to emotions aiding cognition, as with negative mood allowing for better information processing. C.S. Daus, “The case for the ability based model of emotional intelligence” in A Critique of Emotional Intelligence: What are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed?, ed. Kevin Murphy (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 308. 79 See Carol Gohm and Gerald Clore, “Affect as Information: An Individual-Differences Approach,” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002). 80 See Niedenthal, Dalle, and Rothman, “Emotional Response Categorization as Emotionally Intelligent Behavior” in The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002).

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reliability, content validity, predictive validity, consequential validity, and construct

validity.81 The fact that I am not working in the field of psychology means that I am

afforded some leniency that those pushing to define and measure this new construct are

not, and I can question whether or not emotional intelligence is the kind of thing that

should be measured in this way. If a test is designed to measure emotional intelligence

“reliably,” for example, it will give people a score that will remain constant across

various situations and over time. To push for a “reliable” measure seems like the exact

way that emotional intelligence should not be understood.

Following Saarni and Buckley’s notion of emotionally intelligent behavior, with

its emphasis on the idiosyncrasies of one’s developmental history as well as the ways that

we continually learn emotional scripts from our on-going relationships, it would be better

to design a test that would seek out problem areas rather than posit a general score. Such

a test might ask a person about his or her recent and past experiences with anger, or any

other emotion, and whether or not he or she believes that she has handled these situations

well, looking at the situation and others involved, as well as moral notions like self-

respect and fairness. We can see that, for such a test, measuring and changing emotional

intelligence would be internally related, as the subject reflects on her experiences and

tests out different ways of understanding them. It is only by continually focusing on and

seeking out the means by which people can improve that we will avoid associating

emotional intelligence with IQ—indeed, I wonder if IQ can be explained as the result of

the need to test it “reliably”—and that we will see instead that it is a need for all people:

anyone who has emotions needs emotional intelligence. Also, a focus on improvement

81 See Zeidner et al.’s discussion in chapter 2, “Measure for Emotional Intelligence Measures,” of M. Zeidner, G. Matthews, and R. Roberts, eds., What We Know About Emotional Intelligence: How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, and Our Mental Health (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009).

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will bring out the true variety of ways in which people can have and can lack emotional

intelligence.

Approaching the topic from a philosophical perspective is not intended to replace

psychological and educational psychometrics, but to show instead that there is also a need

for a more subtle treatment. The overarching theme of this dissertation is one of

psychological and moral self-improvement; conceiving of emotional intelligence as a

personality trait, a disposition, or, worse, an innate ability such as g, emphasizes the way

that emotional intelligence is fixed, not variable and corrigible. For this reason I am even

resistant to use the term “emotional intelligence” as an abstract noun, but prefer to always

use it in an adjectival form, describing certain behaviors. For example, someone might

say “I’m just not very emotionally intelligent… that’s not my strength” in the way that

someone else would say “I just feel disgusted when I see two men kiss.” Both of these,

supposedly introspective, confessions are meant to be the final word and are meant to

shut down, rather than occasion, discussion. The different ways that people lack

emotional intelligence is as varying as different life circumstances. I do not doubt that

there might be general trends, like difficulties standing up for oneself or expressing grief,

but these types of commonalities do not seem to rise to the level of scientific-ness

demanded by the psychometrics of the broad, umbrella term, “emotional intelligence.”

Ability-based measures tend to measure people at their best while self-report

measures usually track typical functioning.82 Ability-based models of emotional

intelligence ignore the fact that different people are likely to find different kinds of

situations challenging and that all people have room for improvement. Since everyone

has a different developmental history, everyone has learned different lessons about 82 Ciarrochi, Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life, 253.

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emotions; although it makes sense that some emotional situations are inherently

challenging, it also makes sense that everyone will have different problem areas. We

might even find that emotional intelligence is indirectly improved by studying conflict-

resolution strategies, stress-coping techniques, or by improving decision making. If we

focus too much on the affect of the emotion, or on emotions as they differ from other

experiences, we ignore the fact that emotions are about something and that the majority

of our experiences are emotional. Similarly, we cannot exclude the realm of desire and

motivation when understanding an emotion. Similarly, the idea of emotional intelligence,

if it is similarly taken out of the context of experience, might seem to imply that we can

simply talk through and talk away all of our emotions. I seriously doubt that an ability-

based model of emotional intelligence, which hopes to discover and measure the essence

of “emotional intelligence,” can address the true variety of life’s emotional challenges.

The definition suggested here, simply because it retains the term “emotional

intelligence,” can have the negative consequence of suggesting that emotional

intelligence is something exotic or complex. It is important to keep in mind just how

simple of an idea it really is. As Zeidner, Matthew, and Roberts point out, there is some

overlap between the idea of emotional intelligence and successful coping with stress.83

Negative emotions are similar to stress; stress may be a less conscious or longer-lasting

form of negative emotion. Similarly, Brackett and Katulak’s idea of an emotional

blueprint underscores the inherent simplicity of the notion of emotional intelligence.84

“Creating an emotional blueprint” for a situation is just asking oneself questions about

83 M. Zeidner, G. Matthews, and R. Roberts, eds., What We Know About Emotional Intelligence: How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, and Our Mental Health (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009). 84 Bracket, M. A., & Katulak, N. A. “Emotional intelligence in the classroom: Skill-based training for teachers and students” in J. Ciarrochi & J. D. Mayer (Eds.), Applying emotional intelligence: A practitioner's guide (New York: Psychology Press, 2007.

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the emotions involved in a situation, such as “how may each person feel?” and “how may

I feel?”; “what may the person be thinking as a result of these feelings” and “how might I

respond to my feelings?;” “what may be causing these emotions?” and “how might these

feelings be addressed or managed?” The real difficulty of emotional intelligence is

figuring out why it is so difficult to keep in mind this simple, enhanced perspective about

emotions and emotional responses. We could blame the emotions and say that emotions

are inherently disruptive, but it is often times the case that people do not know what to do

about emotions even when they are not having them. It is instead the case that emotions

often stand in for deep needs and desires, and, although these needs may be simple,

failing to meet them is a significant threat, and so emotions stop us from simply turning

our back on problems we do not know how to solve.

Still, there might be resistance to my decision to retain the term “emotional

intelligence” for a philosophically, not to mention morally, inclined theory of emotion.

Although I do largely agree with Salovey and Mayer’s definition, if not their method of

testing, the most productive work on emotional intelligence chooses to leave this term

behind. Goleman has been very successful in linking this term in common parlance with

the idea of having a business sense, and, yet, I use the term to mean almost the exact

opposite. The term itself—“emotional intelligence”— is important for three reasons that I

note in defending my choice to retain it. First, in the context of the philosophy of

emotion, it serves to signify that emotion should not be understand in a limited sense to

refer to some part of subjective experience but should be seen as connected to many

aspects of experience as a process of development. “Emotional intelligence” refers to this

more expansive notion; it is, as Goleman suggests, related to character. Second, the

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notion of intelligence further provides evaluative and teleological pull: intelligence is

something for which we should strive.

Third, the term has the advantage of implying that the emotions are themselves

intelligent. If we insist on continuing to oppose reason and emotion, as does Goleman, we

miss the significance of the intelligence of the emotions entirely. The emotions are not

“intuitions” from the “gut.” Nor are the emotions intelligent in a way that merely

supplements reason, as recent philosophers of emotion like Greenspan, De Sousa, and

Damasio, have argued. The emotions are not only values, latent beliefs for acting one

way of another; they are a deep-seated form of reason that pulls us back to what is truly

important while we are in the midst of attempting to evaluate it. Emotions speak for

needs that might be denied, problems that must be solved, insights that must be had. To

be emotionally intelligent means that we are adept in meeting the moral challenges of

life.

IV: The Connection Between Emotional Intelligence and Morality

The idea of emotional intelligence is not new; it is also related to the idea of

virtue. We have already seen moral considerations play a role in various parts of our

discussion. The demand for emotional intelligence governs our relationship to ourselves

and our relationship to others: self-understanding and empathy for the sake of promoting

“good outcomes.” Furthermore, as we saw in the previous chapter, the evaluation of

emotion that is an inherent part of emotional intelligence is not tied merely to social

norms, but to moral notions of virtue, appropriateness, and responsibility.

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Most theorists working to develop the construct of emotional intelligence agree

that empathy should play some role in it. Empathy might be acceptable as a fully moral

notion, or it might be seen as relating merely to moral psychology. Moral psychology can

be defined either as the study of moral experiences as they are truly moral, such as with

Kant’s discussion of the feeling of respect for the moral law, or as moral experiences as

they are pre-moral or insufficiently moral, such as with Hume’s moral sense theory or

studies that test the extent to which people are willing defy morality to obey authority

figures. In the latter case the term “moral” would perhaps be better understood if it were

to appear with quotation marks around it, since the psychologists studying it are

bracketing the question of whether or not the behaviors actually are moral and whether or

not there is such a thing as morality, it is rather the study of that which is called

“morality” either by the subjects or by the researchers. Nevertheless, if those who study

emotional intelligence hope to have it include empathy only in the latter amoral sense,

they will run into the problem of lacking a good definition for empathy. Without a

morally informed notion of empathy, nothing stops emotional intelligence from being the

ability to effectively coerce people. In her article on emotional intelligence in marriage,

Fitness writes:

It should be noted however that although this facet of emotional intelligence is potentially adaptive in marriage, someone who is skilled at reading other people’s emotions could just as well use this ability for destructive as for constructive purposes. For example, married partners could conceivably use their empathic awareness in a calculated way to identify their partner’s vulnerabilities and insecurities , and exploit these for their own purposes.85

85 J. Fitness, “The Emotionally Intelligent Marriage,” in Emotional Intelligence in Everyday Life (2nd Edition), ed. J. Ciarrochi, J. Forgas, and J. Mayer (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 132.

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Yet it goes without saying that such should not count as emotional intelligence. Similarly,

the definition of emotional competence developed by Boyantzis and Sala, in conjunction

with Goleman’s model, which is “an ability to recognize, understand, and use emotional

information about oneself or others that leads to or causes effective or superior

performance,” lends itself just as easily to coercion and dishonesty as it would to honesty

and fairness.

Empathy, and its correlate self-respect, are moral notions. By this, I mean that

they are morally required, and that we need other moral guides to tell us when we have

achieved them. For example, how do we know when we are sufficiently empathetic? We

do not measure empathy by the number of tears that we cry, but by making reference to

ideals like equality and respect, as well as by considering our duties to promote the

happiness of other and our own self-perfection to the extent that we are able. We can also

ask this question about emotional intelligence in general: how do we know when we have

reached a good understanding of an emotion or of a situation? To answer these questions,

we need both psychological and moral information.

It may be less controversial to argue that the notion of emotional intelligence is

essentially tied to the normative notion of health. Many of the researchers I have

surveyed rely on the normative notion of health to formulate or critique ideas of

emotional intelligence. For example, there are a number of myths about emotionality and

emotional intelligence, like the idea that working through one’s emotions is always

helpful and necessary or that crying is always cathartic. In the event that a preoccupation

with certain emotions diminishes physical and psychological health, it is easy for us to

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conclude that such is not emotionally intelligent.86 Surely, a program aimed at inculcating

emotional intelligence cannot simply adopt an “emotions are good” approach and hope to

achieve psychological health.87 Emotions cannot themselves take the place of the good or

the goal, but can only make sense in the context of understanding good goals. Health is

easy to accept as one such goal because it often has inherent moral worth and does not

frequently conflict with other moral goals. Nevertheless, unless we are packing an entire

moral theory into the notion of “health,” there is more to emotional intelligence than

health.

Many of the researchers suggest a connection between emotional intelligence and

morality. Saarni draws a connection between wisdom and emotional intelligence.88 She

defines emotional competence as “the demonstration of self-efficacy in emotion-eliciting

social transactions.”89 Self-efficacy means that the “individual has the capacity and skills

to achieve the desired outcome.” Although it often goes unsaid, it is clear that

determining what “the desired outcome,” as with conflict resolution, comes under the

purview of morality. Saarni further argues that moral character is a part of emotional

competence, as she likens it to a virtue. She remarks that emotional skills, divorced from

a moral sense, would not yield emotional competence because “emotional competence

entails ‘doing the right thing’.”90 Fitness notes a connection between emotional

intelligence and forgiveness.91 Tugade and Fredrickson argue that emotional intelligence

86 For a discussion of this myth in the context of grief, see G. A. Bonnano, “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Under-Estimated the Human Capacity to Thrive after Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psychologist 59 (2004): 20-28. 87 See Mayer and Salovey, “What Is Emotional Intelligence?”(1997). 88 C. Saarni, “Emotional Competence and Self-Regulation in Childhood,” in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence, ed. P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 35 and 39. 89 Saarni, “Emotional Competence,” 38. 90 Saarni, “Emotional Competence,” 39. 91 Fitness, “The Emotionally Intelligent Marriage,” 133.

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“is associated with higher quality interpersonal relationships among couples and

friends.”92 Furthermore,

positive emotions can produce increasing benefits over time… finding positive meaning amid stress can build personal resources, such as strengthened relationships and enhanced values (by inspiring more courage, tolerance, and wisdom).93

Being morally cut off can lead to being emotionally cut off or to being emotionally off

base. Emotions are based on values and emotional intelligence helps one pursue one’s

values.94 Those who work on emotional intelligence seem to agree that part of the goal of

their work is to help improve people and help people improve their lives. Mayer writes:

It is my hope that emotional knowledge will have a greater positive than negative impact. Societies that recognize the importance of their citizen’s feelings may help create a more humane environment for those who live within them. When this emotional humanity is balanced with the other rights and responsibilities of the individual and society, the world may be better for it.95

Indeed, we need moral judgment to help us hammer out the very idea of emotional

intelligence. Emotional intelligence must answer moral questions: Should I favor

confrontation at any cost? Or emotional conformity? Should I express this emotion

although it will hurt another person? Should I promote this relationship? Should people

lie to themselves in order to protect their self-esteem, established beliefs, and reduce

cognitive dissonance? Or should honesty be the highest virtue (as it appears to be for

anxiously attached couples)? Emotionally intelligent behavior involves the evaluation of

92 See also Marc A. Brackett, R. M. Warner, and J. S. Bosca, “Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Quality among Couples,” Personal Relationships 12 (2005): 197-212; and P. N. Lopes et al., “Emotional Intelligence and Social Interaction,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30 (2004): 1018-1034. 93 M. M Tugade and B. L. Fredrickson, “Positive Emotions and Emotional Intelligence,” In The Wisdom in Feeling: Psychological Processes in Emotional Intelligence, ed. Lisa F. Barrett and Peter Salovey (New York: Guilford Press, 2002), 333, drawing from Tennen & Affleck (1999) and Janoff-Bulman (1992). 94 Ciarrochi, Applying Emotional Intelligence. 95 Mayer (2006). Salovey and Mayer acknowledge that conceiving of and measuring emotional intelligence requires that we have some “right answers” about emotional reactions. They choose to emphasize the extent to which these answers are not possible because of cultural relativity. Salovey and Mayer (1997), 9.

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emotions: if emotions are not evaluated by moral standards, then any standards on which

they are evaluated will lack an ultimate foundation. An emotional intelligence program

that is not fused with moral theory often becomes too centered on the subjectivity of

emotions and fails to address the real problems that the specific emotional situations

present. In other words, a notion of emotional intelligence that ignores moral questions

risks being totally ineffective.

One might object that I have only shown that psychology needs moral theory, not

that moral theory needs psychology or a notion of emotional intelligence. I must go

further and argue that being emotionally intelligent is related to being a good person and

that inculcating or conceiving of virtue without emotional intelligence is impossible.

There is enough evidence to argue that a lack of emotional intelligence causes bad

behavior and that one must practice emotionally intelligent behavior in order to avoid

doing something morally wrong.96 I think we can take the argument even further and

argue that, in some situations, it is morally unacceptable to ignore emotional

communication and information.

Imagine a situation, for example, where we would normally believe that consent

is morally required; clearly, accepting merely verbal assent when there is emotional

information to the contrary would be morally unacceptable. This might seem like a

special situation, but it is necessary for us to take a step back and realize that all of our

interactions and relationships are emotional, even those between relative strangers. The

empathy referred to by the notion of emotional intelligence demands that we be aware of

this unspoken dimension: it does not take a mind-reader to know what someone else

might be thinking and feeling, and yet we are so often afraid to address it. We are morally 96 See Ciarrochi et al. (2007).

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called on to accept and validate the reality of the unspoken, but, again, emotions are not

just the unspoken, we are also morally called on to act with courage, and stand by our

convictions, in our explicit, verbal exchanges. Without an understanding of the moral

importance of emotional intelligence, morality comes to refer to an abstract and

impersonal domain, if it does indeed leave us with any duties at all.

Insofar as morality applies to relationships between people and human interaction,

and emotions are a part of those relationships, it is morally necessary for us to cultivate

emotional intelligence. We accept that the basic physical needs of food and shelter belong

in a moral theory; the idea of emotional intelligence teaches us that people have

psychological needs that are just as real and important as their physical needs. Emotional

intelligence, then, must be provided for and included in any well-informed theory of the

good life or right living.

Like virtue, we expect emotional intelligence to involve both reflective and a pre-

reflective behaviors, as well as both behavioral and rational learning. It, as well as the

philosophy of emotion, sheds light on moral theory when combined with it because

considering all three topics together ensures that we see humans both as animals and as

rational beings. We saw from the last chapter, and we know from the history of moral

theory, that it is too easy to split up these qualities and view humans as only one or the

other. The challenge is to retain both qualities and not collapse one into the other.

As we saw in the first chapter, the idea that morality commands certain attitudes

about the emotions is not new, but the attitude in particular that I am advocating is

relatively new. We might look to Spinoza as an example of the way that the history of

philosophy has engaged with the idea of developing proper emotional engagement and

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the correct frame of mind regarding emotion. Spinoza asserts that the task of ethics is to

achieve a firm grasp of truth so that one can retain this understanding during an

emotional disruption. For Spinoza, passions are inadequate or confused ideas, or, perhaps

we would put the point clearer if we say they are states of confusion. Passivity, for

Spinoza, is the result of this confusion. Spinoza holds that even our thoughts are

determined and that, for this reason, we do not have absolute control over our emotions,

but he held that we can eliminate a passion by replacing the confusion with clear

reasoning. We might still be made to feel affects passively as a result of determination

from external objects, but we can eradicate those further emotional agitations that

originate from our evaluation of the object. The task, then, is to maintain this Stoic

calmness of mind during emotional disturbances.

Discussing Spinoza sheds new light on the underlying problems with Goleman’s

approach. Like Goleman, Spinoza holds that the task for emotional self-improvement is

the overcoming of those emotions that “hinder the mind from understanding.”97 Although

Spinoza is a determinist, his Ethics takes the goal of increasing the experience of

freedom. Emotions, insofar as they are confused ideas, are out of our control and hence

bad. In defining the terms of the inquiry, Spinoza writes, “I say that we suffer when

anything is done within us, or when anything follows from our nature of which we are

not the cause except partially.”98 Spinoza, like many in the history of philosophy,

understands thinking as an activity and feeling as a passivity. The challenge for us now is

to transform the prejudice that we have inherited from language and the history of

philosophy and understand feeling as an activity. To call emotion a choice is too

97 Spinoza’s Ethics, trans. Samuel Shirley, ed. Seymour Feldman (Indiana: Hackett, 1992), 260. 98 Spinoza, Ethics, 128.

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polemical; it is instead necessary to identity ourselves with our feelings the same way we

identify ourselves with our thoughts. We do not choose our thoughts; we do not accept all

of our thoughts wholesale as always correct or desirable. Nor need we accept all of our

emotions. Still, we must overcome the impulse to reduplicate the disassociation of

thought and repression of emotion in refusing theoretically to identify ourselves with our

emotions. (We will revisit this problem in chapter 6 with Kant’s notion of autonomy.) As

I have argued from the beginning of this chapter, our understanding of emotion is internal

to emotional behavior and the theory of emotional intelligence. Emotional problems are

writ large in the theoretical problems that then sustain them. A good theory of emotional

intelligence is tied to the actual practice of emotional intelligence. My hope is that

turning our attention to moral theory, and Kantian moral theory in particular, can promote

that practice.

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CHAPTER III

KANT’S THEORY OF EMOTION

Before I can proceed to my argument that Kantian moral theory works to promote

emotional intelligence—Kant is aware of the moral importance of emotional intelligence,

and Kantian moral theory can therefore support a theory of emotional intelligence—I

must call into question the overwhelming prejudice against Kant and the received opinion

of his theory of emotion. The majority of my readers will believe either that Kantian

moral theory is incompatible with a theory of emotional intelligence, remarking that Kant

would take the term “emotional intelligence” to be an oxymoron, or that Kant’s theory of

“emotional intelligence” is essentially Stoic, holding that we become more emotionally

intelligent the fewer emotions we have. It is true that Kant’s comments about emotion are

often disparaging, but this appearance constitutes merely the outermost layer of his

theory of emotion. Kant appears to accept the Stoic ideal of apathy, holding that emotions

can be dangerous and that virtue requires their extirpation; yet this accepted

understanding of his theory of emotion becomes more complicated when we realize that

Kant’s starting point, his definition of emotion, is unnecessarily narrow and derogatory.

When we limit Kant’s derogatory remarks about emotion to his limited notions of

Affecten and Leidenshaften, we see that there are many aspects of emotionality, or

phenomena that we normally associate with emotion, that Kant does not disparage. It

becomes clear that Kant, like the Stoics, maintains a cognitive theory of emotion but that

he, unlike the Stoics, does not hold that emotional judgments are necessarily false.

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Neither does he hold that emotional judgments are likely to be wrong because of

their lowly origins. The judgments that ground emotions can be integrated into the

rational mind; this is exactly Kant’s recommendation. This fact opens up the possibility

that emotions might be themselves helpful for discovering and choosing the most rational

course of events. Furthermore, Kant would agree with the theory of emotional

intelligence that I have set out: it is more rational to understand one’s emotions than to

attempt to eliminate them or repress them with the “rational mind.”

The first half of this chapter focuses on Kant’s criticisms of emotion and passion,

as well as his well-known criticism of sympathy, showing that Kant’s evaluations are not

unwarranted when we understand them according to his original limited definitions. The

second half of this chapter focuses on those Kantian “feelings” (Gefühle) that rise above

being emotions because of their rational nature, such as the moral feeling (the feeling of

respect for the moral law) and moral feelings (such as properly grounded sympathy).

These feelings play an important role in Kant’s moral theory. I then argue that Kant holds

a cognitive theory of emotion, and I discuss various aperçus that gesture toward a

Kantian theory of emotional intelligence.

I. The Problem with Emotion

In preparing his English version of Kant’s Anthropology for the Pragmatic Point

of View, Dowdell chose to translate the German word Affect as “emotion.”1 Kant

contrasts Affect and Leidenshaft, or what is translated as passion. He defines both Affect

1 It is useful to realize that, by “anthropology,” Kant means something much closer to what we mean by “psychology,” i.e., a study of human mental capacities and behaviors as they are common among humans. Kant defines psychology as the study of inner experiences as they fall under natural laws (A§7). Examples of such natural laws are the categories of the first Critique. This definition of psychology is closer to what we call philosophy of mind and what Kant calls transcendental psychology.

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and Leidenschaft in terms of their irrationality. Both are a part of the faculty of desire

(Begehrungsvermögen):

The inclination which can hardly, or not at all, be controlled by reason is passion. On the other hand, emotion is the feeling (Gefühl) of pleasure or displeasure at a particular moment, which does not give rise to reflection (namely the process of reason whether one should submit to it or reject it). (A §73)

Already we have hit a snag in Kant’s attempt to define emotions entirely derisively:

elsewhere Kant asserts that we always implicitly judge a pleasure to be good or bad as we

experience it (A §64). Nevertheless, we see that Kant is clearly attempting to define

Affecten and Leidenshaften in opposition to reason. Emotion (Affect) is feeling before it

has been consciously reflected on and evaluated; passions are more conscious and

deliberate, but they are, for that reason, even less rational.

Gregor similarly recognizes that Kant’s use of Affect and Leidenshaft are different

than the English terms emotion and passion because he deliberately means Affect to refer

to “a feeling (e.g., anger) which precedes deliberation and makes this difficult or

impossible” and Leidenshaft to be closely associated with vice.2 We might consider

translating Affect with the English cognate, “affect” because we tend to think of affects as

more immediate, but the English term “affect” is less charged and more vague than

Kant’s notion of Affect. Altering the term would also not help in case of “passion” even

though we only rarely use “passion” in this purely negative sense. We talk about being in

the “throes of passion,” but even this is not exactly what Kant means by passion, since

Kantian passion never negates culpability and Kant’s description of passion is of a

longer-term, habituated state. In English it is much more common for us to use the term

2 Mary Gregor, Laws of Freedom: A Study of Kant’s Method of Applying the Categorical Imperative in the Metaphysik der Sitten (Basil Blackwell, 1963), 73-74.

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“passion” to refer to a constructive desire, or set of desires, such as having a passion for

music or pursuing one’s cause passionately. Changing the term would have little effect of

normalizing Kant’s definitions, so we should follow the accepted translation but keep in

mind that these words mean something very specific for Kant. The further specificity of

their meaning will become clearer when we consider the role they play in Kant’s moral

theory, as the notion of passion is closely related to the notions of both vice and

inclination (a term that also has a special meaning for Kant).

Kant often opts for different terms for things that we would consider to be

emotions but that do not fit his purely derogatory meaning. In cases where emotions

originate in reason, as when a sermon stirs up moral emotions, these emotions do not

count as “emotions.” In the case of intellectual vigor, Kant calls it “enthusiasm”

(Enthusiasm). Kant makes the same point about courage, which becomes genuine bravery

or moral courage, and hence outgrows its inferior status as an emotion, when it is

instigated by reason. Kant clearly believes that the defining feature of emotion is the lack

of rational reflection: “it is not the intensity of a certain feeling which creates the

emotional state, but the want of reflection in the comparison of this feeling with the sum

of all feelings (the pleasure or displeasure) in one’s own condition” (A §75). We shall see

that when emotions play a positive role in Kant’s philosophy, they are usually referred to

as “feelings” rather than “emotions.”

Most people would agree that some emotions start out as vague feelings that are

either pleasant or unpleasant; but it seems to be the case that usually, sometimes with

great effort, we reflect on and make rational sense out of our emotions. Kant’s definition

of emotion, then, limits it to the first, pre-reflective stage of an emotion. The initial vague

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feeling of pleasure or displeasure could turn out to be good or bad, worth having or not

worth having, but insofar as it has not been evaluated and reflectively understood, it is

problematic. The emotion could easily remain in its pre-reflective state and instigate pre-

reflective action, and this is Kant’s main concern:

Emotion is surprise through sensation, whereby composure of mind (animus sui compos) is suspended. Emotion therefore is precipitate, that is, it quickly grows to a degree of feeling which makes reflection impossible (it is thoughtless). (A §74)

Kant uses the emotion of anger to illustrate, as he believes that anger is quick to strike

and quick to pass: “What the emotion of anger does not accomplish quickly will not be

accomplished at all. The emotion of anger easily forgets” (A §74). This does not sound

like a very accurate description of anger, but it is useful to illustrate the type of

psychological response Kant has in mind when he refers to emotions. Most of us have in

mind something more like Kant’s notion of hate, which we will discuss shortly, when we

think of anger, as we often are preoccupied by our anger.3

Even if an angry action did not end up causing harm or being immoral—even if it

were beneficial to those involved— it would still be morally dangerous for Kant,

because, as pre-reflective, it is still unthinking and not the product of rational choice.

Such a behavior is unprincipled and cannot be a recommended course of action since 3 Somewhat contradictorily, since Kant believes that emotions lead to rash and harmful behaviors, Kant suggests that the best way to respond to emotions like anger and shame is to express them immediately so that they do not turn into resentment. Resentment must then be vented by people “verbalizing their concerns” (A §78). Kant rightly points out that such verbalization is difficult and that the emotions themselves seem to make it difficult. He concludes “for this reason these emotions present themselves in a disadvantageous light” (A §78). It is true that the negative emotions are difficult and unpleasant to experience for reasons over and above their content. They do, in fact, seem to frustrate the very purposes that they inspire. For example, if someone’s actions upset me, the most straightforward response is to tell that person that they are upsetting me and to perhaps ask them to stop. To be upset, though, is a negative emotion and difficult to express. The most unemotional person could simply state “I do not like to be teased; it upsets me; please stop,” or make a similar request, but the true-to-life emotional person simply becomes upset and stymied by her anger. Hence, it does seem that the negative emotion frustrates its own goal, but, as we discussed in the first chapter, such difficulty is probably not truly the fault of the emotion, but of the whole situation and of one’s subjective proclivities.

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there is no guarantee it is morally acceptable. Furthermore, in being pre-reflective and

automatic, there is a sense in which the behavior is degrading to our humanity. Although

there are those who will speak in favor of spontaneity for its own sake, commonsense

surely shows that it is better to think through one’s actions before one acts. In the case in

which we decide to follow the original emotional impulse, taking the time to rationally

evaluate the impulse need not water down the affect; it is only when we are compelled to

pursue an action that is rationally unwise that we need to set about changing the impulse

in some way or deferring it.

Kant agrees with the Stoics that “the prudent man must at no time be in a state of

emotion.” Not only are emotions irrational in the sense of being pre-reflective, they are

irrational in the sense that they “make [a person] incapable of pursuing [his] own

purposes” (A §75). Emotions are at cross-purposes with purposiveness. Kant argues that

emotions, such as anger and shame, are “incapacitating because of their intensity” (A

§78). If emotions do have an inchoate purpose, then, they cannot effectively serve it, at

least not as emotions. To sum up, Kant lodges at least three criticisms against emotions:

they are pre-reflective; they are internally conflicted; and they are imprudent and might

be immoral.

Kant writes: “to be subject to emotions and passions is probably always an illness

of mind because both emotion and passion exclude the sovereignty of reason” (A §73).

There are certainly a number of examples of cases in which people appear to act

irrationally because they are in the throes of an emotion. Our language itself adopts this

theory of emotion and takes the term “emotional” as a synonym for “irrational.” If we say

that someone is behaving “emotionally,” we usually mean that he is giving a knee-jerk

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response that is the product of intense feeling and not reasoning carefully. Nevertheless,

as I have suggested, there is no reason to think that this way of speaking is anything more

than sedimented prejudice against emotion, rather than an accurate psychological theory.

There is no reason to think that a bad decision-making process is any more the fault of

the emotion than it is the fault of reason and an individual’s poor judgment or learned and

habituated means of experiencing emotions. It seems likely that someone who is

prejudiced against experiencing emotion is more likely to respond to an emotion hastily,

and someone who is open to feeling an emotion and exploring its meaning is better able

to discover the best course of action, which may itself be suggested by the emotion. If it

can be shown that Kant accepts a cognitive theory of emotion, and that there is no reason

to think that the judgment that grounds an emotion is essentially more fallacious than any

other kind of judgment, then we have opened the door to showing that emotions can be

reasoned with and can even be a part of good reasoning. Indeed, as we shall see, Kant

holds this to be true. The Kantian quest for rationality involves self-analysis and

evaluation, which requires understanding and thinking through one’s emotions before

acting. It may turn out that, for whatever reason, the judgments that ground emotions are

more difficult to evaluate than impersonal judgments, but that does not mean that such

evaluation is any less necessary or possible. As we shall see, Kant agrees with this

conclusion.

II. The Problem with Passion

Kant is even more condemnatory of passion. Kant holds that emotions strike us

and fizzle out quickly, whereas passions last longer and become habitual inclinations

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toward certain actions. “Emotion works like water that breaks through a dam; passion

works like a river digging itself deeper and deeper into the bed” (A §74). Kant gives the

example of the difference between anger and hate: anger is an emotion and is relatively

short-lived, while hate is an inclination that can last for years and is therefore a passion.

The fact that many of us are aware of the fact of being preoccupied by our anger only

underscores the relationship between emotion and passion about which Kant is worried:

emotions turn into passions if they are effectively dealt with or integrated into the (moral)

rational mind. A passion is an emotion that has been integrated into the rational mind but

in a way that is incompatible with our higher nature and human worth.

Kant’s comments on passion are more difficult to understand than his comments

on emotion. Kant offers two distinct criticisms of passion, yet he fails to clearly

distinguish between them: the first is that passion is necessarily an irrational

preoccupation with and favoring of one inclination over all others motives; the second is

that passion, even if an expression of clear-headed reasoning,4 is necessarily immoral. In

the first case, Kant’s criticism of passion is the same as his criticism of emotion but Kant

takes passions to be more recalcitrant to reflection: “inclination, which hinders the use of

reason to compare, at a particular moment of choice, a specific inclination against the

sum of all inclinations, is passion” (A §80). In other words, passions preoccupy us and

continually lead to irrational decisions. Fridja lodges this criticism at “emotions” with his

“law of closure”:

Emotions tend to be closed to considerations that its aims may be of relative and passing importance. They are closed to the requirements of interests other than those of their own aims. They claim top priority and

4 Kant gives a variety of names to the reasoning power that does not take up explicitly moral ends, which are all synonyms: prudential reasoning, pragmatic reasoning, techno-practical reason, etc. In contemporary terms, we would call this calculative or instrumental rationality.

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are absolute with regard to appraisals of urgency and necessity of action, and to control over action.5

Fridja writes that emotions similarly shirk a consideration of consequences. A passion,

for Kant, is something like a drug addition; we can very effectively strategize ways to get

the next fix, but the fact that this goal takes precedence over all, or many, of our other

goals, is irrational. In using hate, as opposed to anger, to illustrate passion, Kant must be

thinking of an experience closer to all-consuming hate, like Iago’s hate for Othello (if

hate—rather than repressed erotic desire—is really the best description of Iago’s psychic

state), rather than the simple evaluation that someone is contemptuous or even the

disposition to avoid him and to speak spitefully to him. Unless we assume that all forms

of hate are essentially irrational and/or immoral, we must assume that Kant is referring to

a particularly all-consuming variety.

Passions involve more reflection and choice than do emotions, and for this reason

they are more blameworthy for Kant. When considering Socrates’s argument that it might

sometimes be good to experience the emotion of anger, Kant writes: “passion, on the

other hand, no man wishes for himself. Who wants to be put in chains when he can be

free?” Kant suggests that the type of reason allowed by passion is still necessarily

perverted or immoral: “passion always presupposes a maxim of the subject, namely, to

act according to a purpose prescribed for him by his inclination” (A §80). Passion causes

the privileging of one inclination over other concerns, and for this reason passion is

essentially immoral. The moral meta-maxim, as we know from the Religion essay, is to

always choose to follow the moral law over inclination whenever the two conflict; the

immoral meta-maxim is to follow inclination always regardless of whether or not it

5 Fridja, The Laws of Emotion, 15.

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conflicts with the moral law. Passion, being preoccupied with itself, forces the subject to

choose on its behalf over the moral law, should the two conflict, and it therefore sets up

the subject for immoral behavior.

Kant seems to conflate his two criticisms of passion. He describes passion’s

tendency to promote the fulfillment of one inclination over a measured consideration of

the sum total of inclinations (or “making one’s partial purpose the whole of one’s

purpose”) as harmful for pure practical reason (A §81). Surely, pure practical reason,

insofar as it is pure, does not allow for any determination by inclination. Kant’s two

criticisms of passion are united: “The delusion consists in equalizing the mere opinion of

someone regarding the value of a thing with the actual value of the thing” (A §82). A

flaw of prudential reasoning (a sort of calculative myopia) may also become a flaw of

moral reasoning (the inability to value correctly). In holding the fulfillment of one

particular inclination up above all our other inclinations, we are failing to value correctly.

A moral failing, involved in choosing to fulfill an inclination over following the moral

law, is also an act of failing to value correctly. Although both are failures to value

correctly, these two types of failure are nonetheless qualitatively very different. The

elision of these two criticisms highlights the fact that Kant believes that there cannot be

moral passions, as we shall see in our upcoming discussion of sympathy. The way that

Kant defines passion negatively parallels his use of the term “inclination” (Neigung),

which has a purely negative or selfish meaning (as we will discuss in chapter 5). Passions

are desires, and “habitual sensuous desire is called inclination” (A §73). Often “passion”

is synonymous with vice, for Kant; and the opposite of certain passions are virtues.

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It should be noted that Kant’s remarks about emotion and passion in his explicitly

moral works adopt this theory from the Anthropology. In the Metaphysics of Morals,

Kant writes:

Affects and passions are essentially different from each other. Affects belong to feeling insofar as, preceding reflection, it makes this impossible or more difficult. Hence an affect is called precipitate or rash (animus praeceps), and reason says, through the concept of virtue, that one should get hold of oneself. Yet this weakness in the use of one’s understanding coupled with the strength of one’s emotion is only a lack of virtue [as opposed to a vice], as it were, something childish and weak, which can indeed coexist with the best will. It even has one good thing about it: that this tempest quickly subsides. Accordingly, a propensity to an affect (e.g., anger) does not enter into kinship with vice so readily as does a passion. A passion is a sensible desire that has become a lasting inclination (e.g., hatred as opposed to anger). The calm with which one gives oneself up to it permits reflection and allows the mind to form principles upon it and so, if inclination lights upon something contrary to the law, to brood upon it, to get it rooted deeply, and so to take up what is evil (as something premeditated) into its maxim. And the evil is then properly evil, that is, true vice. (MM 166)

Putting Kant’s theory of emotion into the context of his moral theory, we can see that

passions bear a striking resemblance to vices. Kant’s list of the passions—ambition, lust

for power, and avarice—is a list of vices (A §82). (Although, strangely, Kant includes the

natural passion for freedom in his discussion of passion, and he does not criticize this

natural passion in any way, describing its natural, moral development.6) The insight that

passions are vices sheds new light on recurrent attempts to explain and defend Kant’s

criticism of sympathy.

6 Kant believes that moral thinking helps the natural inclination for external freedom develop into the concept of justice. He describes this transition as a strengthening, not a sublimating, of the passion. In the case of freedom, reason and passion work together: “reason alone establishes the concept of freedom and passion collides with it” (A §82).

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III. The Problem with Sympathy

Kant’s elision of his two criticisms of passion prevents him from considering

moral passion; yet his discussion of one moral feeling in the Groundwork, viz. sympathy,

has been chiefly responsible for the bad reputation of his philosophy of emotion. (Note

that the fact that sympathy is a feeling (Gefühl), and not a passion, allows for its

resolution with reason, of which we shall see Kant is very much in favor.) Since any

mention of Kant’s theory of emotion most commonly calls to mind Kant’s criticism of

the moral motivation of sympathy, it is best that we devote some time to elucidating his

position.

Henson and Herman have debated the correct reading of Kant’s take on those

inclinations, such as sympathy, which cooperate with a respect for duty and jointly bring

about moral action.7 Henson argues that Kant would allow that moral actions can be

determined by both respect for the moral law and inclinations at the same time—a thesis

referred to as “overdetermination.” The idea of overdetermination holds that any one of

the motives acting alone must be strong enough to cause the action by itself. Henson

suggests that Kant did not see the possibility of overdetermination and that when we

bring up this possibility it helps to make sense of the difference between an action having

moral worth and an action conforming to duty, since an action can conform to duty and

yet not have moral worth. Given the assumption that moral worth only accrues to actions

that are done only out of respect for duty, with no cooperating motivations, Henson

argues that it is clear, based on the Groundwork, that an action without moral worth can

7 In Richard Henson, “What Kant Might Have Said: Moral Worth and the Overdetermination of Dutiful Action,” The Philosophical Review 88, no. 1. (1979): 39-54; and Barbara Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” The Philosophical Review 90, no. 3. (1981): 359-382.

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still be moral and, thereby, praiseworthy.8 On the other hand, Henson downplays the

importance of moral worth for Kantian moral theory, since it seems to require dire

situations in which one has lost all moral feeling.

Herman argues that Henson’s notion of overdetermination is simplistic and that

respect for duty should be seen as a meta-motivation or a “limiting condition” on

motivation, i.e., a motivation that checks our other motivations.9 She holds that Kant

would grant moral worth to an overdetermined action if the moral motive were the

motive upon which the agent acted.10 This discussion is further complicated by the fact

that Kant believed that it is nearly impossible to be sure that one has not unconsciously

chosen out of inclination instead of out of respect for duty.

8 Note that Henson conflates act and agent evaluations. I do not think that this in itself constitutes a major flaw with his thesis. 9 Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” 373. 10 Guyer, in Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, rejects both these solutions because he argues that inclinations are not “potentially independently motivating factors in the first place” (293). Guyer argues that, for Kant, reason is always involved in acting and we choose to act on an inclination and can even choose to have or not have inclinations. He cites Allison’s “Incorporation Thesis” interpretation as evidence for this reading. Therefore, if there are cooperating inclinations contributing to a moral action, they should be seen as products of the respect for duty. Guyer is mistaken to think that the “Incorporation Thesis” relates to this issue. It may be the case that Kant believes that an agent must always choose to make an inclination a reason for his action, as Guyer argues. That does not tell us anything about whether or not we can choose based on two reasons, or if an action only has moral worth for Kant when we choose to have only one reason for doing it, viz., respect for the moral law. Guyer argues that, like Herman’s idea of a “limiting condition,” people always employ one out of two meta-maxims: “the maxim always to do, out of respect for duty, all and only what duty requires or permits, and thus to act as an inclination would suggest only if so doing in compatible with or conducive to doing what duty requires; or the maxim always to do, out of self-love, what inclination suggests, even when so doing is incompatible with doing what duty requires”(295). Guyer bases this conclusion on Kant’s discussion of moral dispositions from Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. This focus on an agent’s fundamental character (good or evil) makes it so that inclinations themselves can never cooperate or conflict with duty and makes the agent (“to some extent”) responsible for his inclinations. To support this interpretation, Guyer draws on the discussion of the moral need to cultivate moral feelings in the Metaphysics of Morals. Although Guyer emphasizes his distance from Herman here, in other chapters of Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness he emphasizes her point that applying the categorical imperative, as it is a limiting condition, requires other motives in order to make it effective. Guyer uses the terminology of form and content. Either way, the point is that we cannot read Kant’s theory of moral action as a rejection of the moral worth of determination through inclination because an action requires a motivation and all such really motivating motivations come from inclination. Guyer does not square this argument with the Groundwork, and that seems to be necessary at this point, since we seem to have gone astray from the original goal of making sense of Kant’s claims about moral worth that appear to pit it against determination through inclination.

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It is clear from the text that Kant intends to make a distinction between actions

that are done for the sake of duty and actions that merely conform to duty. Henson’s

conclusion is that the latter have more value for Kant. That is obviously false. Acting

from duty alone may be difficult to do, comprehend, and recognize, but we can conceive

of it through the thought experiments that Kant offers and be edified. Perhaps that is one

point often overlooked: the thought of acting out of the pure respect for duty ought to

inspire respect. Although an occasion to act out of respect for pure duty would definitely

be the product of a bad situation, as Henson notes, the action would still be praiseworthy

and edifying because it demonstrates the human potential to elevate morality and

rationality over personal benefit and instrumental rationality. Kant makes the distinction

between behaviors that merely accord with duty and those that are done for the sake of

duty in order to elaborate that which is special about acting from duty: it is categorically

different than acting from inclination. (I argue in chapter 5 that Kant often assumes that

inclinations are inherently selfish.) This distinction explains the most important concept

in the philosophical understanding of morality: pure respect for duty, which turns out to

require the pure thought of lawfulness and, therefore, comprehension of the moral law.

Without the latter, one has not understood the essence of morality at all and merely

remains at the level of a pre-philosophical intuition of morality, lacking true moral worth

and being constantly vulnerable to corruption since one’s behavior and convictions lack

grounding in true moral principle.

Herman is right that actions motivated by inclination have no moral content.

Inclination does not track morality and inclination is therefore an inconsistent guide to

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moral action.11 Herman gives the example of feeling sympathy for someone carrying a

heavy load: according to Kant’s analysis, the mere feeling of sympathy is not mixed with

a rational reflection about the principles and circumstances involved, such as being a

hooded figure at the back door of an art museum struggling to bring out a large

rectangular object at night.12 Sympathy is an unacceptable ground of moral action not

because it does not sometimes lead to the right end, but exactly because it must only do

so sometimes.

Annas criticizes modern ethical theory, of which Kant is her main example, for

holding that virtue must always correct emotions, and she argues that Ancient ethics is

superior because it accepts that sometimes feelings can lead independently to the right

result.13 Annas argues, against Sidgwick’s argument that we are not responsible for our

feelings and so they do not belong to ethical theory, that we are responsible for our

feelings, although not in the moment. She gives the example of working to break a bad

habit.14 As we can see, this is not a very accurate criticism of Kant. The problem with

pre-reflective feelings is not that they are vicious but that they are pre-reflective. As we

shall see, Kant does not deny the importance of natural moral feelings as well as their

proper cultivation, but he does define moral worth in terms of correct understanding.

Sympathy, according to Kant’s defined usage, is not based on reasoned reflection

and does not attain the level of principled moral action necessary for what Kant believes

is the essential component of morality. Furthermore, respect for the moral law is itself

11 See also Paul Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 337-351. 12 Herman, “On the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” 364. 13 Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 53. 14 Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Hackett Publishing, 1981, 1874); Annas, The Morality of Happiness, 56.

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necessary for moral worth. Even if one’s sympathetic actions miraculously always

matched the moral requirements of the situation, which is not likely unless the feeling of

sympathy had itself already been produced by rational reflection, such a person would

still lack genuine moral feeling (respect for the moral law) and, therefore, genuine moral

worth on Kant’s account. In the “Preface” to the “Doctrine of Virtue,” Kant calls

following moral feeling instead of moral reason “blindness.” We are reminded of his

remark in the first Critique that intuitions without concepts are blind. It is not that moral

feelings are bad, wrong, or unnecessary; they simply cannot be the whole story of moral

understanding and decision-making.

Kant begins the Groundwork discussion in question by stating that an

examination of the concept of duty will help him and the reader reach a better

understanding of the concept of a good will. In order to form a clear idea of the essence

of duty, he uses a process of elimination. He first excludes from considerations all actions

“which are recognized as opposed to duty,” since that is the most obvious first step. Next

he draws on a distinction between actions that are in accord with duty yet not done from a

“direct” inclination (only “another” inclination) and those actions, similarly in accord

with duty, but done from a “direct” inclination. The merchant example serves as an

example of the former, while the normal care we give to the preservation of life is an

example of the latter. Kant seems to rank the latter as better than the former and calls the

merchant “selfish,” but he does not use this epithet for the natural preservation of life.

(Kant does refer to the natural preservation of life as selfish in other texts, which is not to

say that it is evil, but possibly morally dangerous.) Kant states that it is easy to see that a

behavior done for selfish reasons is not done out of duty, but “it is far more difficult to

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note this difference when the action is in accord with duty and, in addition, the subject

has a direct inclination to do it”(G 397). We might ask: why is it difficult? One answer is

that Kant is aware of the possibility of overdetermination. He might be stating that such

actions could be determined both by respect for the moral law and by direct inclination.

That does not seem to be his meaning. Instead, when we take into consideration the fact

that he sees the argument as progressing from the commonly held conception of the good

will to the more-difficult-to-ascertain principles of philosophy, it is clear that Kant

recognizes a difficulty here because it is likely that we would normally, in our everyday

apprehension of moral goodness, fail to make a distinction between the inclination to be

kind, or the feeling of sympathy, for example, and the estimation of genuine moral worth.

We normally think that the sympathetic inclination does confer genuine moral worth.

Kant’s main point here is that it does not. Inclinations as such do not have moral worth.15

Nevertheless, it is a mistake to jump from that conclusion to the idea that a moral

action cannot be done with inclination. As Kant continues with his discussion of moral

worth, he almost explicitly protects himself from this reading by referring to the moral

requirements to cultivate certain inclinations. The next paragraph begins: “To secure

one’s own happiness is at least indirectly a duty,” and in it Kant argues that reason and

respect for the duty to secure happiness is a better and more noble means to this end than

by following inclination (G 399). The point of these paragraphs is to argue that reason is

a better guide to morality than is inclination and that, following the insight that the only

thing that is good without condition is a good will, morality bears a special relationship to

reasoning.

15 Beck discusses the fact that choosing duty over inclination is an illustration of morality, not morality itself. Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 228.

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Next, Kant discusses the commandment to love our neighbor, although he makes

a distinction between love as an inclination (pathological love), which he claims cannot

be commanded because it is merely an immediate feeling, and practical love, which is

under our control and is commanded. Those who would accuse Kant of believing that

moral actions must be devoid of supporting inclinations must assume that Kant would

interpret this biblical passage as a command to practically love our neighbors and, at the

same time, as a command not to pathologically love them. Such is absurd. (Note that

pathological love of one’s neighbor should be classed as a feeling, not an emotion or a

passion.) Clearly, the common-sense reading is that it is perfectly acceptable and

admirable to love your neighbors pathologically, yet it is not, and cannot be, a moral

command, because moral commands only have to do with reason. (We shall further

discuss the relationship between command and the immediacy of feeling shortly.)

Inclination is amoral, not immoral. Already, the exclusion of inclination from moral

worth has consequences for our discussion of emotional intelligence, but it is not the last

word in the story.

This discussion of sympathy shows that Kant’s criticism of emotional impulse is

consistent between his works. Sympathy, insofar as it is not informed by moral principle,

is a bad guide to moral action, just as emotion is a bad guide to action because it is pre-

reflective. It does not follow from this that Kant believes that we must extirpate all moral

feelings; in fact, quite the opposite is the case.

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IV. Kant’s Theory of Emotion, Take Two: The Virtuous Feelings

Hursthouse expresses the common prejudiced understanding of Kant’s theory of

emotion: Kant does not allow that emotions can be part of our rational nature, nor can

they be morally significant.16 Perhaps, if we limited our understanding of Kant’s theory

of emotion to only that which has already been said, we would agree with this reading.

Yet I have already shown that Kant’s limited definitions of Affect and Leidenshaft

preclude accepting his comments about them as the whole of a theory of emotion. It is

not surprising to see Kant criticize pre-reflective impulses and vicious pre-occupations.

Affecten are merely the first and most immediate level of emotional experience. A

consideration of Kant’s positive theory of emotion offers two points in opposition to the

common, prejudiced reading of Kant. First, a consideration of the feeling of respect and

other intellectual feelings shows that feeling is an essential part of Kant’s moral theory.

Second, this discussion will lead to a discussion of moral feelings considered more

broadly, and it will become clear, as it has already begun to, that feelings can and should

become integrated into the rational mind and that they are an essential component of

virtue.

Even though Kant argues that natural sympathy cannot be the foundation of moral

theory, he does hold that some natural moral feelings do track proper moral

comprehension. The moral law naturally inspires the feeling of respect. Of course, in the

Groundwork, Kant attempts to defend his move to “seek refuge…in an obscure feeling”

with the retort that this feeling is different in kind from all other feelings (G 4:401n).17 A

16 Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 109. 17 There is some reason to think that it is Kant’s own dualism that makes him believe that reference to a feeling is necessary because his notion of “pure” reason cannot itself be practical. Regardless, Kant’s notion of respect definitively shows us that he believes that feelings can be based on reason. In the

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more considered examination of the role that intellectual feelings play in Kant’s texts

demonstrates that respect is in no way singularly special. Even though Kant explicitly

denies that “intellectual feeling” is possible at all (because, he argues, something cannot

be both intellectual and a feeling at the same time), it is clear that he believes that there

are feelings that follow from rational comprehension. I am not sure what to call these if

not “intellectual feelings.” It is to a discussion of this supposedly different kind of feeling

that we now turn, demonstrating that a feeling does not lack moral worth for Kant

because it is natural, but because it is not well grounded in reason. Certain natural

feelings, like respect for the moral law, play a necessary role in Kant’s moral theory as

they help him to demonstrate that humans are naturally called to develop their moral and

rational faculties.

In explaining the cultivation of virtue, in the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant argues

that some aspects of morality cannot be described as virtues, for they are simply natural:

There are certain [natural] moral endowments such that anyone lacking them could have no duty to acquire them—They are moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbor, and respect for oneself (self-esteem). There is no obligation to have these because they lie at the basis of morality, as subjective conditions of receptiveness to the concept of duty, not as objective conditions of morality. All of them are natural predispositions of the mind (praedispositio) for being affected by concepts of duty, antecedent predispositions on the side of feeling. To have these predispositions cannot be considered a duty, rather, every human being has them, and it is by virtue of them that he can be put under obligation.—Consciousness of them is not of empirical origin; it can, instead, only follow from consciousness of a moral law, as the effect this has on the mind. (MM 6:399)

Groundwork’s discussion of the feeling of respect, Kant hesitates precisely because he considers the objection that feelings are not based on rational concepts and are reducible to inclination and fear. Here, even though the concept of feeling (Gefühl) seems to be the larger class of which emotions are only a smaller part, his criticisms of emotions apply to feelings. Gefühl and Affect can both be translated as emotion. As in English, the words feeling and emotion are not clearly differentiated. See Mark Packer, “Kant on Desire and Moral Pleasure,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50, no. 3 (1989): 429-442, for the argument that Kant’s emphasis on respect shows that emotions must play a role his theory or autonomy.

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As “subjective conditions of receptiveness,” these feelings do not constitute a “moral

sense” as theorized by the moral sense theorists, because they are subjective affectations

of objective rational comprehension. The moral feeling of respect is inspired by

comprehension of the moral law; therefore, it is beholden to the moral law, not the other

way around, and it is based in intellectual comprehension. MacBeath argues that the

feeling of respect is felt as an imperative and not just an inclination because it

presupposes reason.18 Kant writes:

But though respect is a feeling, it is not one received through any influence but is self-wrought by a rational concept… What I recognize as a law for myself I recognize with respect, which means merely the consciousness of the submission of my will to a law without the intervention of other influences on my mind. (G 400)

Respect is a worth that “thwarts my self-love”(G 401). Note that respect is not here

described as itself morally motivating, as it might be construed, but rather the

accompaniment to moral motivation.

The importance of the feeling of respect is a well-discussed aspect of Kant’s

ethics, as it plays a central role in Kant’s account of moral motivation, but commentators 18 A. Murray MacBeath, “Kant on Moral Feeling,” Kant-Studien 64 (1973): 289. MacBeath calls Kant’s theory of moral feeling “breathtakingly absurd” because he believes that it is a “fiction conjured up out of a defective view of rational action.” Kant’s view is supposedly defective because reasons do not need feelings in order to be effective; ibid., 313-314. MacBeath only re-asserts the dichotomy between reason and emotion by arguing this. In reality, the idea of an a priori, universal feeling that is based on a sense of shared humanity, is sublime, not absurd. Reasons do not need feelings in order to be effective, hence, moral feeling is not commanded, but a natural, human response. Kant’s theory of moral feeling sits at the edge between moral psychology and moral theory: it is a part of his theory of human nature on which his moral theory is partly based. Kant does give the feeling of respect as part of the answer to the question, “how is pure reason practical?” Nevertheless, this question was poised for an answer from moral psychology. The question should not to be understood as pointing to the castrated nature of reason, but only to its weakness relative to pragmatic incentives. The questions asks about our freedom from the standpoint of the worry about determinism. The question asks: how is it that people would ever choose to follow the moral law when there is always a strong inclination pulling us in the direction of selfish benefit? The answer is: because we have moral feeling. We are psychologically convinced of the necessity of the moral imperative. MacBeath’s interpretation is clearly mistaken, as it implies, as he himself remarks, that all reasons need feelings in order to be effective and Kant clearly does not hold this. Furthermore, MacBeath’s reasoning is unnecessarily dualistic: reasons and feelings can and do operate together, with reasons shifting into feelings and vice versa. We need not define feelings as irrational impulses; that is altogether an unacceptably narrow definition and cannot capture the phenomena of decision-making.

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do not often point out the similarities between respect and the other Kantian intellectual

feelings.19 In defining the feeling of respect as a feeling that mixes fear and attraction,

Kant draws a connection between the feeling of respect and the feeling of sublimity.20

This is an important connection for us to grasp in order to see the true character of

Kantian morality, because, as with a subject’s relationship to the sublime, when

confronted with the moral law, the subject feels both a loss of his own subjectivity and a

strengthening of his rational power. A commitment to the moral law is a commitment to

sacrifice oneself if it is necessary, a commitment to act without regard to consequences,

whether they be to oneself or others. For example, one must not lie even to save one’s

own life. Therefore, proper comprehension of the moral law rightly inspires fear for our

own survival, but also freedom from slavishly serving the goal of survival. Instead, we

feel a sense of our higher, moral purpose.

Kant mentions that we feel a sense of the sublime in the face of the moral law in

both the Critique of Judgment and in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and

Sublime, and so we might argue that the feeling of respect for the moral law is only an

instance of the feeling of the sublime. Kant remarks that contemplating a noble character

is an occasion for feeling the sublime:

The noble ground remains and is not so much subject to the inconsistency of external things. Of such a nature are principles in comparison to impulses, which simply well up upon isolated occasions; and thus the man of principles is in counteraction with him who is seized opportunely by a

19 See, for example, William Sokoloff, “Kant and the Paradox of Respect,” American Journal of Political Science 45, no. 4 (2001): 768-779; and Mark Packer, “Kant on Desire and Moral Pleasure,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50, no. 3 (1989): 429-442. 20 The feeling of the sublime is similarly morally instructive because it reinforces the worth of human dignity. Unlike with beauty, sublimity can be connected to moral interest. Objects arouse the feeling of sublimity when the make us aware of our own limitless worth and rational vocation. Guyer argues that the feeling of sublimity is very much like the feeling of respect, but the feeling of the sublime involves a subreption, so that we project sublimity in the object. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality, 221.

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goodhearted and loving motive. But what if the secret tongue of his heart speaks in this manner: ‘I must come to the aid of that man, for he suffers, not that he were perhaps my friend or companion, nor that I hold him amenable to repaying the good deed with gratitude later on. There is now no time to reason and delay with questions; he is man, and whatever befalls men, that also concerns me.’ Then his conduct sustains itself on the highest ground of benevolence in human nature, and is extremely sublime, because of its unchangeability as well as of the universality of its application.21 (O 65)22

Kant often calls the notion and the feeling of freedom sublime. The notion of

freedom is closely related to the moral law because autonomy is the expression of the

highest form of freedom for Kant. In the third Critique Kant makes the connection

between the sublime and the feeling of respect for the moral law, as well as the feeling of

freedom, more explicitly. Kant defines the dynamic sublime as “an aesthetic judgment [in

which] we consider nature as a might that has no dominance over us” (CJ §28). The

feeling of respect for the moral law, which is akin to a mixture of fear and inclination,

makes us feel that nature, specifically physiological determination, holds no power over

us. The feeling of the sublime allows us to feel our independence from nature, an

independence that keeps “the humanity in our person from being degraded” (CJ §28). If

we consider relegating the feeling of respect to merely an instance of the feeling of the

sublime, we should also consider the possibility that autonomy and the moral law are

paradigmatically sublime:

Hence, if in judging nature aesthetically we call it sublime, we do so not because nature arouses fear, but because it calls forth our strength… to regard as small the objects of our natural concerns: property, health, and life, and because of this we regard nature’s might (to which we are indeed subject in these natural concerns) as yet not having such dominance over

21 In the second Critique, Kant warns against merely imitating noble and sublime actions because then the performance of such acts would not be based on principle, but here we see that the feeling of the sublime is a recognition of virtue based on principle (CprR 84-85). 22 Page numbers of the Observations of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime refer to John Goldwaith’s translation (University of California Press, 1960).

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us, as persons, that we should have to bow to it if our principles were at stake and we had to choose between upholding or abandoning them. (CJ §28)

The fact that we can choose to obey the categorical imperative over a competing

hypothetical imperative is the condition for the possibility of the feeling of the sublime.

The feeling of respect follows naturally from a comprehension of the sublimity of

the moral law; we do not need to try to make ourselves feel it.23 Kant’s ethics relies on

this degree of natural moral sensibility. Kant calls the feeling of respect “self-wrought,”

but this does not mean that the bond between the cause of moral comprehension and the

effect of the feeling of respect is any less strong. It is brought about by the self in the

same sense as moral actions are autonomous: they conform to rationality and are not

instinctual responses. We naturally feel respect when we conceive of the moral law, even

though the moral law is not a product of nature, but of reason. Is it paradoxical that we

have a natural feeling of our independence from nature? Answering that question would

take us too far afield and, most likely, into an examination of Kant’s political writings

and his theory of teleology. Still, it is this seeming contradiction that makes Kant’s notion

of the sublime a continually interesting notion. Sokoloff argues that,

respect is neither completely sensible nor completely intelligible but both and neither at the same time. It is a transient that eludes both poles of the binary opposition reason/feeling that inaugurates Western metaphysics.24

For this reason Sokoloff maintains that Kantian respect is a paradox and reading it as

such can help us suspend the tendency of “cognitive domination.”25 If the feeling of

respect is truly successful in eluding the reason/feeling dichotomy, why is it a paradox? It

23 Guyer gives the compelling argument that Kant’s moral theory relies on and is open to psychological insight. For example, the fact that the moral law inspires respect is a psychological fact, not a metaphysical fact. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 366. 24 Sokoloff, “Kant and the Paradox of Respect,” 769. 25 Ibid., 777.

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seems to me that this conclusion itself fails to truly challenge dichotomous thinking. If

reason can itself be naturally linked to feelings, then the feeling of respect does not

constitute a “paradox” but an occasion for us to realize that it is only a deficiently

understood brand of cognition that threatens domination.

Aesthetic feeling is another example of a feeling that is occasioned by intellectual

activity. As such, it is neither irrational nor tends toward immorality. In the Critique of

Judgment Kant discusses the means by which the natural aesthetic response can help one

develop a sense of shared humanity and thereby a comprehension of the importance of

mutual respect and the moral law. Furthermore, aesthetic feeling is based on disinterested

observation; it cannot be determined by natural impulses, such as Kant’s passions. Kant

calls the beautiful the “symbol of the morally good” because both require pure

intelligibility, the experience of freedom, the unity of the theoretical and practical

powers, as well as the idea of the supersensible substratum of nature that allows for its

harmony with freedom (CJ §59). Lest one disparage aesthetic judgment for being merely

a symbol of moral judgment, we must note that aesthetic judgments exemplify many of

the key features of moral judgments. For example, aesthetic taste is morally instructive

because it teaches us to have a purely intellectual liking (CJ § IX).

Thus we have examples of a number of feelings that naturally follow from reason.

(In the next chapter I discuss the feelings of proper self-esteem and morally worthy

happiness.) We may be thrown off by Kant’s continued insistence in the “Doctrine of

Virtue” that feelings cannot be commanded. Kant argues, for examples, that it is

nonsensical to proscribe a duty to have a conscience: “To be under obligation to have a

conscience would be tantamount to having a duty to recognize duties”(MM 6:400).

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Nevertheless, this is the case only because Kant believes that we all already do have a

conscience. If moral feeling is wanting, we can attempt to cultivate it “through wonder at

its inscrutable source” (MM 6:400).26 In other words, the presence of moral feeling is

natural, but we can enhance it through rational contemplation, which is also its source.

The fact that Kant holds that feeling cannot be commanded shows that natural feelings

are very important for Kant’s theory and are the starting point of sound reasoning. It also

opens up the possibility that feelings, like the feeling of conscience, that play a role in the

development of rational comprehension might also have an unconscious rational basis.

The defender of passion will probably object that these intellectual feelings all

pale when compared to real feeling. If we believe, contra Beck, that the feeling of respect

is not meant to supplement Kant’s account of moral motivation, then this criticism seems

appropriate.27 The intellectual feelings may seem like feelings that arise without much

commotion and subside without causing much of a stir. Real emotions are motivating, the

objection might run: Can feeling also play an active role in Kant’s account of rational and

moral behavior? One might further object that, even though these feelings are supposedly

inspired by rational comprehension, there is no discussion of the possibility that rational

comprehension might be wrong. Is the feeling of respect meant to obscure this

possibility, making it more akin to hubristic might than a vulnerable and sensitive

26 The reference to an inscrutable source here is akin to Kant’s use of the argument from design in his discussion of beauty, in the third Critique, as evidence nature and reason are compatible and, indeed have the same underlying cause, guaranteeing that our actions are effective and that there is reason to hope that moral behavior will not go unrewarded. 27 From the Metaphysics of Morals, the Religion essay, and the Lectures on Ethics, Beck concludes that “all determination of the will proceeds (a) from the representation of the possible action (b) through the feeling of pleasure or pain (through taking an interest in the action or its effect) (c) to the act. The aesthetic condition, the feeling, is either pathological or moral: the former if the pleasure precedes the representation of the law, the latter if it follows it an is, as it were, pleasure in the law.” Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 224.

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recognition?28 If the feeling of respect exists only as an effect of rational activity, like a

switch that is turned on or off, then we have reason to worry that it is blind in the same

way that natural sympathy turned out to be blind. On the other hand, if we take seriously

Kant’s decision to integrate a feeling into the highest level of rational deliberation, we

can trust that the feeling of respect is not like the passions that we discussed earlier; the

feeling of respect is conducive to reason and need not be “trusted” or blindly followed

anymore than reason itself needs to be “trusted.” “In fact,” Kant writes,

no moral principle is based, as people sometimes suppose, on any feeling whatsoever. Any such principle is really an obscurely thought metaphysics that is inherent in every human being because of his rational predisposition. (MM 6:376)

Kant does not advocate taking any feeling at face value, but instead that we understand

the thoughts that are contained therein. Kant’s integration of feeling and reason follows

from his need to show that practical and theoretical reason function cooperatively, and, in

the spirit of this integration, he develops his theory of the virtuous moral feelings and the

necessity of their cultivation in both his Lectures on Ethics and the “Doctrine of Virtue”

in the Metaphysics of Morals.

Although Kant continues in his insistence on the immediacy of feeling, writing

that we cannot be commanded to feel something, Kant acknowledges that we can be

commanded to cultivate certain feelings. It is necessary to cultivate moral feelings

because, as Kant recognizes, feeling can be a powerful instigator of moral action and, as

he therefore argues, we have a duty to increase our ability to behave morally. This fact

combines with the evidence that, unlike the Stoics, Kant believes that there are healthy

28 Kant writes that we cannot speak of erring in judgments of conscience, not because practical reason cannot be wrong, but because a judgment of conscience only refers to whether or not the act has been submitted to internal judgment (MM 6:401).

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emotions, in demonstrating that Kant does not reject the importance of emotion for

rationality and morality; he simply holds that some emotional responses are better than

others.29 In fact, Kant recognizes the moral importance of emotional intelligence.

The “Doctrine of Virtue,” being based on the rational humanity formulation of the

categorical imperative, explains the necessary ends of morality: one’s own perfection and

the happiness of others.30 Kant addresses the cultivation of moral feeling when he

discusses our duty to perfect ourselves.31 In the duty to promote self-perfection, we have

the duty to cultivate our faculties or “natural predispositions,” such as moral feeling. In

striving for our natural perfection, we must cultivate “any capacities whatever for

furthering ends set forth by reason”(MM 6: 392). Cultivating these “crude dispositions of

… nature” enables one to use them as means to realize the ends that one sets for oneself

(MM 6: 392).

29 In his guidebook to Kant’s philosophy, Guyer enumerates six connections between aesthetics and ethics, some of which overlap with our discussion here: one, “aesthetic experience can present morally significant ideas in an imaginative and pleasing way;” two, “the experience of the dynamical sublime so centrally involves the intimation of our capacity to be moral;” three, “there are significant parallels between our experience of beauty and the structure of morality;” four, “in the experience of beauty we can actually feel that the world is consistent with our aims, including our ultimate moral aim;” five, quoting Kant, “the beautiful prepares us to love something… without interest” (CJ, general remark following §29); six, “the cultivation and realization of common standards of taste in a society can be conducive to the realization of… ‘lawful sociablity’.” Guyer, Kant, 324-328. 30 Kant argues that we do not have a duty to promote our own happiness because we naturally seek it and because we ought not value our happiness over morality. Such a duty may be construed if our own prosperity is for the sake of securing our moral compliance, since poverty occasions temptations to violate one’s duty (MM 6:388). We do not have a duty to promote the perfection of others because that would entail paternalism and we must treat others as rational beings capable of making their own moral choices. This is tricky distinction to make, and Kant holds that we can refrain from helping others in their purposes that we judge to be immoral. Furthermore, we have a negative duty to promote the “moral well-being” of others in that we must refrain from setting a bad example and “giving scandal.” 31 Guyer examines the Metaphysics of Morals for evidence that Kant believes that we have a duty to cultivate moral feeling. He argues that, first, the duty to outwardly conform to duty may require feelings to perform. Second, we have a duty to know ourselves and know whether or not we are motivated by duty. This requires psychological knowledge. Third, duty for duty’s sake should usher in moral feelings. Fourth, duties of respect require we refrain from emotionally injuring others. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 382-384.

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“Moral feeling,” in a narrow sense, refers to respect for the moral law, as we have

already seen, but in a broader sense it refers to a general sensitivity to the demands of

morality, and, in the broadest sense, it refers to the feelings, like properly grounded

sympathy, that these demands require. So, in the narrow sense, moral feeling refers just to

a proper grasp of duty:

A human being has the duty to carry the cultivation of his will up to the purest virtuous disposition, in which the law becomes also the incentive to his actions that conform with duty. This disposition is inner morally practical perfection. Since it is a feeling of the effect that the lawgiving will within the human being exercises on his capacity to act in accordance with his will, it is called moral feeling, a special sense (sensus moralis), as it were. It is true that moral sense is often misused in a visionary way, as if (like Socrates’s daimon) it could precede reason or even dispense with reason’s judgment. Yet it is a moral perfection, by which one makes one’s object every particular end that is also a duty. (MM 6:387)

In its widest sense, the feeling of respect for the moral law and other moral feelings, such

as sympathy, collide. In the case of virtue, we respect and take up the ends that are also

duties: self-perfection and the happiness of others. So when we promote someone else’s

happiness we are pleased with ourselves both because we know we have done what is

right and because we share in her happiness. Kant writes that “sweet merit” is the feeling

of pleasure at having promoted another person’s happiness in a way that directly makes

the other person happy, “for consciousness of [the other’s happiness] produces a moral

enjoyment in which human beings are inclined by sympathy to revel.” If the situation is

such that beneficiary of one’s efforts is not grateful, one’s moral contentment can only be

a “bitter merit” (MM 6:391). So, in its widest sense, a moral feeling is any feeling that

follows, however indirectly, from the representation of the moral law, just as love and

respect are “the feelings that accompany the carrying out” of our duties to others (MM

6:399, 448). Furthermore, since the impulse to virtue relies so much on natural moral

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feeling, Kant explains that virtue itself is a find of aesthetic orientation, which includes

also the feelings that accompany negative moral judgments like disgust and horror (MM

6:405).

Kant defines virtue as strength in overcoming those inclinations that oppose the

moral law. We gain this strength both by contemplating the moral law and by acting

virtuously (MM 6:397). So, for example, even though we cannot have a duty to feel

benevolently, we have a duty to act benevolently, and it is likely that benevolent feelings

will follow:

Beneficence is a duty. If someone practices it often and succeeds in realizing his beneficent intention, he eventually comes actually to love the person he has helped. So the saying “you ought to love your neighbor as yourself” does not mean that you ought immediately (first) to love him and (afterwards) by means of this love do good to him. It means, rather, do good to your fellow human beings, and your beneficence will produce love of them in you (as an aptitude of the inclination to be beneficent in general). (MM 6:402)

Although Kant thinks that duties to sympathy and compassion should not really ask us to

suffer for the other person and that they should not turn into pity, he clearly believes that

the feelings of compassion and sympathy are important for virtue, as is their cultivation.

Kant famously remarks that we have a duty not to avoid places where poor and sick

people are likely to be, “sickrooms and debtor’s prisons,” because the feelings that these

places naturally inspire are good and instrumental for spurring virtuous actions (MM

6:457).

Kant addresses our duties to cultivate moral feeling when he discusses our duties

to others because, contra Schiller’s worry, we owe people not just proper behaviors, but

proper feelings, such as due concern and gratitude. Kant argues that we have a duty not

only to respect, but to love others: to joy in their joy and sorrow in their sorrow.

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Furthermore, we must consider the probable feelings of others, e.g., if we must make

them the beneficiary of our generosity, we must not make them feel servile and try to

spare them humiliation by acting as though it is only a slight service and freely given.

In the Lectures on Ethics, Kant argues that active obligations (obligatione activa)

include the obligation to have a certain disposition, or character (Gesinnung).Of course,

the notion of having a good character is very close to the notion of virtue. Here we see

that reason and sensibility cannot be cut off from one another since reason must play a

role in sculpting proper sensibility. Selfish feelings often oppose moral motivation, and it

is therefore our duty to bring our feelings in line with duty in order to secure the

consistent adherence to duty. Although the Kant of the Lectures is steadfast in his

distinction between pathological causes and intellectual causes, these two causes must

nevertheless work in cooperation to bring about a moral action:

There are actions for which moral motives are not sufficient to produce moral goodness and for which pragmatic, or even pathological causae impulsivae are wanted in addition; but when considering the goodness of an action we are not concerned with that which moves us to that goodness, but merely with what constitutes the goodness in and of itself. (L18)

Here Kant seems to be preempting Schiller’s later criticism, viz., that Kant’s moral theory

requires that we extirpate natural moral feeling. Instead, Kant suggests that we sometimes

have a duty to have moral feelings.32 Morally legitimate moral feeling comes when

understanding determines sensibility (L 46). Once an understanding of moral worth has

been established by reason, moral feeling naturally does and should follow.

In the Lectures Kant remarks that pure practical reason cannot in itself be

sufficiently motivating.33 In other words, the Kant of the Lectures holds that

32 The Kant of the Groundwork agrees: “to be kind where one can is a duty” (G 398). 33 Guyer believes that this is Kant’s considered opinion on the topic.

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overdetermination is necessary.34 Kant did not yet entertain a possible connection

between pure motivation and transcendental/transcendent freedom. He calls the

possibility of pure practical reason acting on its own accord “the philosopher’s stone”:

The understanding, obviously, can judge, but to give to this judgment a compelling force, to make it an incentive that can move the will to perform the action—this is the philosopher’s stone! (L 45).35

Although the Lectures do not seem to hold that pure reason can of itself be

practical, they do make a distinction between motivation and stimulation (per motiva and

per stimulos) and hold that the moral law is the only proper moral motivation although

there may be other stimuli prompting moral actions. The Lectures hold that pathological

motivation is a psychologically necessary cause of moral actions, but we must guard

against it perverting our notion of morality, which must always be based on the thought

of pure principle:

The lessons of morality must be learnt: it ought not to be mixed with solicitations and sensuous incentives; it must be taught apart and free from these; but when the rules of morality in their absolute purity have been firmly grasped, when we have learnt to respect and value them, then, and only then, may such motives be brought into play. They ought not, however, to be adduced as reasons for actions, for they are not moral and the action loses in morality on their account; they ought to serve only as subsidiara motiva calculated to overcome the inertia of our nature in the face of purely intellectual conceptions. (L 76)

34 It is interesting to note that, far from being a moral theory more sensitive to moral psychology, as many commentators believe, the theory of the Lectures presupposes more of a dichotomy between reason and sensibility than the later version of Kant’s moral theory. We see Kant speaking in terms of the head and the heart: “The supreme principle of all moral judgment lies in the understanding: that of the moral incentive to action lies in the heart. This motive is moral feeling. We must guard against confusing the principle of the judgment with the principle of the motive. The first is the norm; the second the incentive. The motive cannot take the place of the rule. Where the motive is wanting, the error is practical; but when the judgment fails the error is theoretical”(L 37). In holding that “purely intellectual conceptions” cannot in themselves overcome the influence of inclination, Kant pits these two faculties at odds with each other. His later writings, which holds that pure practical reason is a kind of practical reason and that reason, paint it as physical faculty. 35 It may appear that Kant is confusing Reason and the Understanding, but the fact that these judgments of the understanding refer to intentions to act shows that they are the work of practical reason.

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In other words, the efficient cause of an action is not the same as the principle that makes

it morally worthy, which may be likened to the formal cause, in Aristotelian terms. He

writes “grounds for decision are, therefore, objective, but grounds for execution can also

be subjective”(L 23).

Some commentators have argued that there is a salient difference between the

account of the Lectures and the Metaphysics of Morals and that the earlier theory is

preferable. Even though in his later moral writings, Kant believes that moral freedom

involves freedom from determination by sensibility, this new position is less of a

contradiction with the Lectures than it at first appears.36 In the second Critique Kant

holds that humans can be determined to act directly by the pure law of reason, but we can

see continuity with his earlier position in the belief that the feeling of respect follows

from proper cognition of the law and a sense of our obligation, and that the notion of the

Highest Good, which is happiness proportionate to morality, can serve as the goal of

morality. Both texts extol both a proper, rational grasp of morality and the feelings that

naturally accompany it.

36 Guyer argues that Kant maintains this theory of pathological determination into his later works and that it develops into the conviction that moral feeling is necessary for morality. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 30, 337. Guyer argues that the prize essay Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime suggest that feeling may be the basis of morality and that the first Critique also seems to say that an “operative cause” is necessary for morality—the idea of happiness. Then, he points out that the Duisburg Fragment 6, written after the first Critique, gives happiness a moral definition: happiness is “well-ordered freedom.” The operative cause then becomes the worthiness to be happy. “This fragment constitutes a transition from a dualistic to a monistic theory of moral motive.” (p. 215) Previously the cognitive and the conative factors had been kept separate. After this though, autonomy and not moral happiness is the moral incentive (Triebfeder). Kant abandons the distinction between incentive and motive. All incentives are subjective, but they need not be sensuous; there is a higher and lower faculty of desire. Therefore, the rational principle itself is the moral motive. Guyer argues that Kant initially believed that, in moral actions, reason is applied to desire, as a form is to content, but later Kant developed the idea that reason is applied to freedom. The idea that moral judgments require both form and matter comes from Kant’s early essay An Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality. Guyer believes that Kant maintained the requirement of subjective determination throughout his mature philosophy and that the feeling of respect takes over this role from other moral feelings. Guyer’s more general thesis is that the goal of morality is universal happiness though universal freedom. Guyer argues that, for Kant, freedom is the essential value of morality and that freedom promotes happiness.

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Now that we understand the important role moral feelings play in Kantian moral

theory, we can address a common, contemporary criticism of Kantianism, viz., in holding

that virtue is a kind of strength and fortitude, Kant mistook mere continence for virtue.

Annas gives this a reason for preferring Ancient ethics over modern moral theory.37 First,

we must note that Kant characterizes virtue as a kind of fortitude against the continued

resistance from inclination, not as an emotion or feeling. Virtue necessarily opposes “that

which opposes the moral disposition within us”(MM 6:380). Emotions, as we have seen,

are pre-reflective impulses for Kant, and are neither essentially selfish, nor do they make

reflection impossible, although they might make it difficult. Virtue necessarily opposes

the passions because, as we have seen, Kant defines “passion” very closely to “vice.”

Even though passions and selfish inclinations are related in Kant’s mind, feeling, and to a

lesser extent, emotion is not. When we confuse “inclination,” which does connote

immorality for Kant, and “feeling,” which does not, we are tempted to similarly oppose

feeling and reason. Doing so leads to the defense that highlights the role of impurity, as

opposed to the holy will, in Kant’s ethics.38 In this way, we might argue that Kant

championed pure reason, but that he made concessions for the human case because we do

not have divine wills and are thus a mixture of pure reason and

inclination/emotion/feeling. This defense paints an overly austere picture of “pure

reason,” which need not and does not exclude feeling, as we have seen. (It is this mistake,

confusing feeling with inclination, that leads Gregor to think that Kant would prefer

holiness, which she describes as the lack of feeling, over virtue. There is no reason to

37 Annas, The Morality of Happiness, 53. 38 See Robert B. Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, Introduction. Gregor similarly refers to man as a “moral being with an animal nature”; Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 128.

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think that holiness equates with the lack of feeling instead of with the lack of temptations.

In other words, there is no reason to think that Kant mistook angels for robots.)39

Still, Kant calls virtue fortitude—later, he calls virtue a “strength of resolution”

(MM 6:390).) In my mind, the jury is still out over whether it is better and more accurate

to think of immoral inclinations as relatively intractable or as easily overcome. (This

discussion is taken up again in chapter 5.) Perhaps it is better to conceive of virtue as a

struggle in order to emphasize that we are constantly pursuing virtue, unlike Aristotle’s

assumption citizens of a good state are already virtuous, resting on their laurels, as it

were. Kant writes:

But virtue is not to be defined and valued merely as a aptitude and … a long-standing habit of morally good actions acquired by practice. For unless this aptitude results from considered, firm, and continually purified principles, then, like any other mechanism of technically practical reason, it is neither armed for all situations nor adequately secured against the changes that new temptations could bring about. (MM 6:383-4)

And: “Virtue is always in progress and yet always starts from the beginning” (MM

6:409). Aristotle puts the emphasis on proper upbringing and taking one’s lead from

virtuous institutions, Kant emphasizes reform; but Annas argues that Aristotle is also

concerned about reform, and we know that Kant is also dearly worried about proper

upbringing. In arguing that Aristotle recognizes that good habits must be based in proper

moral understanding, as Annas does, the sharp contrast between Kant and Aristotle on

this score seems to fade.40 Annas takes it to be a point in favor of an Aristotelian moral

theory that it holds that the emotions can naturally lead to moral outcomes. This clearly

overlooks the role that natural moral feelings play in morality for Kant. Annas’s

39 The Laws of Freedom, p. 175. This assertion also comes from the worry that Kant’s emphasis on moral feeling represents a back sliding away from duty to heteronomy as the moral motivation. 40 Lest we find the constant threat of back sliding into mere self-control or the assumption that emotions have a miraculous parallel with virtue; Annas, The Morality of Happiness, 67.

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characterization of Aristotle’s theory seems to include the idea that it would be desirable

to try to use feeling exclusively as a guide, attempting to cut it off from all rational

reflection, as if such a thing were even possible.

Furthermore, we must appreciate the context of Kant’s characterization of virtue:

he is explaining the way that the “Doctrine of Virtue” similarly involves constraint, as

does the “Doctrine of Right” since “all duties involve a concept of constraint through a

law”(MM 6:394). So, “what essentially distinguishes a duty of virtue from a duty of right

is that external constraint to the latter kind of duty is morally possible, whereas the

former is based only on free self-constraint”(MM 6:387). If it is in fact the case that Kant

believes that “rational natural” beings are always tempted by pleasure, and that the moral

law is not simply technically a constraint but also always felt as a constraint (because he

draws attention to constraint in this context), he nevertheless emphasizes that it is a self-

constraint, and therefore simultaneously voluntary and affirmed (MM 6:379).41

Cheerfulness, not continence, is the ideal of Kantian virtue. Kant argues that we

will not be successful in achieving morality if we merely forbid ourselves to follow our

immoral inclinations. Instead we must find a way to reduce the strength of these

inclinations by confronting them on their own turf, as it were. If reason simply tries to

overpower feeling, it will lose because feelings and immoral inclinations are too strong.

The duty to “rule oneself” goes beyond “forbidding [one] to let [oneself] be governed by

[one’s] feelings and inclinations” (MM 6:408). We must find ways to make our feelings 41 The relationship between duty and constraint is a topic that requires further inquiry. Kant writes that we do not have the duty to promote our own happiness only because we do so naturally and not “reluctantly” and so it is not a constraint (MM 6:386). It remains to be seen whether or not he means anything more than the idea that the notion of “duty” or “command” seems to require as content a behavior that we were not, necessarily, going to do already, just as we can only have as a duty something that is possible. If it is not merely a semantic point, it seems to have strange and unsettling consequences, such as something no longer being a duty when we want to do it. If it is merely a semantic point, the degree of argumentative weight it carries is unjustified.

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follow reason. Kant criticizes “monkish ascetics,” which aim merely to dominate and

repress sensual inclinations.42 He argues that if we do not find pleasure in moral behavior

we will shirk from our duties:

The rules for practicing virtue (exercitiorum virtutis) aim at a frame of mind that is both valiant and cheerful in fulfilling its duties (animus strenuous et hilaris). … what is not done with pleasure but merely as compulsory service has no inner worth for one who attends to his duty in this way and such service is not loved by him; instead he shirks as much as possible occasions for practicing virtue (MM 6: 484).

In this discussion, Kant sides with Epicurus over the Stoics: it is not enough to merely put

up with misfortune, one must enjoy life. Furthermore not having conflicting motivations

makes us happy. This kind of happiness is surely an expression of the Highest Good.

We have considered the ways that Kant relies on the naturalness of many feelings

in his moral theory. Furthermore, it is clear that we can enhance these feelings and

cultivate other, properly grounded, moral feelings through correct understanding and

virtuous behavior. Being necessary for virtue, feelings play this direct role in Kant’s

moral theory, but they also play a more indirect role, as the previous discussion began to

insinuate. In focusing on the explanations that Kant gives for the importance of

cheerfulness and social interaction for the cultivation of morality, we must not overlook

that Kant’s discussions of these topics are not entirely focused on instrumentality. In the

Anthropology, as with many of his more light-hearted discussions, Kant discusses some

of the more prosaic aspects of life. Having died a bachelor, Kant did not often write about

the joys of family life, but he was no stranger to the joys of friendship, specifically in the

form of the dinner party. Although Kant lived alone, he was not a loner: he enjoyed the

42 See Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 171.

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company of his friends and acquaintances. He clearly saw social enjoyment as an

important part of life.

Kant discusses the dinner party in the Anthropology as the highest ethicophysical

good: “The good living which still seems to harmonize best with virtue is a good meal in

good company (and if possible with alternating companions)”(A§88). Obviously, this

idea is not as important as the Highest Good of the second Critique, but it is still

surprising to see him give such high praise to dinner parties. He discusses the ways that

dinner party conversation complements and promotes philosophical thought: “Eating

alone (solipsimus convictorii) is unhealthy for a philosophizing man of learning, it does

not restore his powers but exhausts him… it turns into exhausting work and not the

refreshing play of thoughts”(A§88). Kant values dinner parties so highly that he engages

in many Emily Post-type recommendations for their success, concerning, e.g., the proper

number of guests and rules for successful conversation (A§88).43 Kant believes that many

simple pleasures add to the value of life and promote psychological well-being:

The cynic’s purism and the hermit’s mortification of the flesh, without social good-living, are distorted interpretations of virtue and do not make virtue attractive; rather being forsaken by the Graces [whom Kant has already suggested represent the proper number of guests at a dinner party], they can make no claim on humanity. (A§88)

In the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant also explains that enjoying social interaction

itself constitutes a virtue. There he makes a connection between social intercourse and his

moral notion of cosmopolitanism: “while making oneself a fixed center of one’s

43 It is interesting to observe Kant’s discussion of conversation and keeping polite society come into conflict with his moral theory. It is important to treat those with whom one disagrees respectively, but it is okay to refuse to keep company with those whom one finds immoral. One gets the impression that Kant was not fond of having moral debates at dinner parties (see, e.g. A§88). In addition, Kant refers to the “sanctity and secrecy” of the dinner party environment that requires that people not gossip about things that were said there (A§88). Of course, Kant does not advocate lying about what was said, but he surely does not advocate the total transparency that seems to be at the base of his other discussions of lying.

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principles, one ought to regard this circle drawn around one as also forming part of an all-

inclusive circle of those who, in their disposition, are citizens of the world”(MM 6:473).

He explains that the social virtues lead indirectly to an ideal world, or, we might say, the

Kingdom of Ends. It is a duty of virtue to cultivate “a disposition of reciprocity—

agreeableness, tolerance, mutual love and respect (affability and propriety, humanitas

aesthetica et decorum)”(MM 6:473). He is careful to distinguish between merely having

good manners and having true social virtue. Being a member of a Kingdom of Ends

involves conceiving of oneself and others both as legislator and subject. It is a vision of

equality founded on respect; it is similarly toward this type of relationship that the social

virtues strive.

Kant often refers to the ideal of true friendship. True friendship is one that is not

based on a passing appreciation of someone’s pleasant company, but one that has

weathered the test of time and is a moral expression of mutual respect and aide. Kant

calls it “moral friendship.” Kant calls true friendship “the most intimate union of love and

respect”(MM 6:469). Kant calls true friendship “unattainable in practice,” but to strive

for it is a “duty set by reason” nonetheless (MM 6:469). Concerning Schiller’s criticism,

it is very important to note that friendship requires the “equal balance” of feeling and

duty, and that one must be very careful to strive for this balance lest one err on the side of

coldness or on the side of disrespect: “for love can be regarded as attraction and respect

as repulsion, and if the principle of love bids friends to draw closer, the principle of

respect requires them to stay at a proper distance from each other” (MM 6:470).

Friendship is manifested in helping one’s friend, and this help is an expression of “inner

heartfelt benevolence”(MM 6:471). Friendship also involves two people sharing their

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feelings with each other: “moral friendship (as distinguished from friendship based on

feeling) [zum Unterschiede von der ästhetischen] is the complete confidence of two

persons in revealing their secret judgments and feelings [Empfindungen] to each

other”(MM 6:471).

Of course, Kant would not use the words Affecten or Leidenshaften to explain the

enjoyments one gets from pleasant conversation or a close friendship because, as we have

already seen, these words bear a largely derogatory sense for Kant. He argues that the

“love” of friendship cannot be an Affect because Affecten are blind and transitory (MM

6:471). Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that friendly affection and spirited intellectual

engagement do involve emotions in the normal sense of term, and necessarily so.

Even in his discussion of Affect proper, Kant occasionally wavers in his condemnation.

For example, even though Kant argues that emotions are necessarily rash and

experienced as a hindrance, Kant states that some expressions of emotion seem to

promote physical health. Laughter, weeping, and anger all seem to facilitate a release.

Laughter exercises the diaphragm, aids digestion, and promotes society. Surely Kant

recognizes that emotions, even in their pre-reflective state, are human and a valuable part

of life.

V. Kant’s Cognitive Theory of Emotion

In the second Critique, as well as in other places, Kant calls an intellectual feeling

a contradiction in terms.44 Hopefully, the preceding discussion succeeded in convincing

the reader that Kant’s moral theory relies on and references at least eight intellectual

feelings: moral feeling, conscience, love of one’s neighbor, respect for oneself (self- 44 CPrR 117.

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esteem), the feeling of freedom, the feeling of respect for the moral law, the feeling of the

sublime, and the feeling of aesthetic enjoyment.45 In these cases, it is clear that feeling

follows from and is a product of reason. Now I am going to take the argument further and

consider evidence that Kant’s discussion of emotion assumes that all emotions are

intellectual feelings; in other words, I believe that Kant holds a cognitive theory of

emotion.46

Even though the majority of Kant’s comments about Affecten and Leidenshaften

are disparaging, his assumptions about emotions lead one to believe that he holds a

cognitive theory of emotion. As we saw in chapter 1, a cognitive theory of emotion holds

that emotions should be explained primarily in terms of their cognitive content. Merely

maintaining this, however, does not rule out also believing that the emotions are

necessarily irrational.47 The Stoics, for example, believed that emotions are judgments,

but necessarily false judgments.48 A judgment such as “it matters that my child died,”

45 Guyer points out that in the Critique of Judgment Kant remarks that respect is the only feeling that “we cognize fully a priori”(CPR 5:73). This does not mean that respect is the only feeling that is determined by reason, as Guyer worries, only that respect is the only feeling caused by pure reason. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 361. 46 The difference, perhaps, between cognitive emotions and intellectual emotions is that the latter implies conscious awareness of the thoughts that form the intentionality of the emotion. As we have seen from chapter 1, the former does not. 47 For example, Kant discusses the role of imagination and empathy and in heightening emotional experiences, even if only to criticize it. For the most part he takes these experiences to be silly. He considers the case in which someone, staying up late, becomes excited about various emotional ideas, only to find that they have faded from memory in the morning: “therefore, the taming of one’s imagination, by going to sleep early in order to rise early, is a very useful rule for the psychological diet” (A §33). 48 Sherman argues that Kant “did not avail himself of the shared ancient view that emotions are not brute sensations, but states that have evaluative content. This might have made it easier for him to let go of certain rhetoric against the emotions and appreciate even more fully just how reason’s project can work through the emotions.” Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, 120. This constitutes a significant difference between our projects. I think that it is only possible to maintain this if one limits one’s understanding of Kant’s theory of emotion to a very limited consideration of his comments about Affect. If you take his statement that Affecten make reflection “difficult or impossible” to mean that they literally make reflection fully impossible, then you have some support for denying him a cognitive theory of emotion. Even still, the case would not be closed since Affecten might still have cognitive content from which we are necessarily cut off from. Nevertheless, the most commonsensical interpretation of this passage is that emotions make reflection difficult and are often not reflected on at all.

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which grounds the emotion of grief, is false for the Stoics and the product of an unhealthy

attachment to the transient world. A cognitive theory of emotion denies that emotions are

arational, not that they are irrational. Nevertheless, as we have already begun to

understand, Kant does not go as far as the Stoics and does not believe that all emotional

judgments are false; instead he believes that many emotions, i.e., Affecten, tend to cause

poor reasoning.

Cognitive theories of emotion oppose the tendency of affective theories to define

emotions primarily in terms of physical feelings. As we saw in chapter 1, this

disagreement is partly the result of a false dichotomy and partly hinges on the definition

of “emotion,” as it does with Kant. Those who hold cognitive theories of emotion do not

wish to deny that emotions are by and large a special type of thought that occurs with/in

bodily feelings; and those who hold affective theories of emotion, by and large, cannot

deny that emotions are usually the result of a perception—in the robust sense—of

important content. Kant, on the other hand, takes a position that is rather far on the

cognitive end of the spectrum: he does not identify emotions (die Affecten) with physical,

bodily feelings at all: “certain interior physical feelings are related to the emotions, but

they are not identical with them since they are only momentary and transitory, leaving no

trace behind”(A §79). Surprisingly, given the modern debate between cognitive theories

and affective theories, Kant has no problem defining emotions in abstraction from their

physical states. Of course, he does not deny that emotions and physical feelings are

related. It is simply rather the case that these physical feelings do not tell us about the

essence of the emotion, which can only be understood in terms of an intellectual

evaluation.

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Although very few current theories of emotion deny that some animals can have

emotions and that some emotional responses are common to all humans, affective

theorists follow the biological-functionalist tradition of Darwin more closely, while

cognitive theorists believe that the subjective response has more to do with creating the

subjective response than the objective situation. Kant, again taking up a position that is

farthest on the cognitive extreme, focuses on the passions that are uniquely human (and

their relationship to vice, as we have seen) (A §82). Furthermore, Kant focuses on the

relationship between being in a state of emotion or passion and the capacity for

reflection. His definition, which includes hindering reflection, cannot possibly apply to an

animal. Kant divided passions into those that are innate and those that are acquired. The

acquired passions, ambition, lust of power and avarice, have objects that are unique to

human beings. Even the innate passion for freedom has a complex cognitive structure (A

§82).

Kant describes emotions and passions as aspects of the faculty of desire

(Begehrungsvermögen), not as a part of our capacity for “pleasure and displeasure” (Lust

and Unlust). Emotions and passions involve the desire to either promote or hinder their

own existence, as pleasures and displeasures do, but they are significantly more

complex.49 Emotions are reactions we have to socially meaningful situations, but unlike

mere reactions they contain an implicit directive for action. “Begehren” is often used to

mean “to seek after something,” which implies a more conscious and active plan of

action than the verb “to desire,” which to our ears sounds more like the passivity implied

49 Even pain and pleasure are always mediated by the understanding, for Kant, since they include an evaluation of the pain or pleasure and a consequent submission, but Kant does call taste and smell the senses of pleasure (A§ 21). This fact is important to keep in mind when evaluating Kant’s “incorporation thesis.” See chapter 5.

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by the German “Lust.” We must keep in mind that Kant, in classifying both emotions and

passions with the conative faculty, aligns them with practical reason. Kant’s analysis

suggests that emotions and passions include either latent or explicit thoughts, desires, and

evaluations, not merely sensations.

In his description of emotion, Kant argues that an emotion thwarts its own

purpose. In objecting that emotions do not effectively serve their own purposes, Kant,

perhaps unwittingly, acknowledges that they do have a purpose. It might be the case that

Kant wishes to argue that their purpose may be misguided; yet he implies that the

purpose in the case of anger, at least— to avert the perceived evil—is constructive (A

§78). If an emotion did not have a worthy purpose, it would be of no consequence that it

did not effectively promote it. Many affective theorists define emotions in terms of states

of action readiness, such as that being angry makes one likely to yell. This model

suggests that emotions have evolved to serve their purposes, but that the emotions of

civilized people are often triggered by non-natural stimuli and are therefore ineffective

and inappropriate. Kant’s notion of an emotion’s purpose is not the same as this idea of

action-readiness. The fact that Kant believes that a reasoned response could better serve

the purpose, even the purpose of self-preservation, than an emotional response shows that

he believes that emotions cannot be best understood as biological adaptations. Instead,

emotions are latent thoughts. Surely, though, emotions can be quite complex, and even

the person who experiences them may not be aware of their cognitive content. In other

words, an emotion might be experienced as an affective upheaval, but Kant’s discussion

of them suggests that, at their core, emotions are not only compatible with the rational

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mind, as we can rationally weigh all of our desires, but they are also inherently rational,

and seem to contain a best, most rational directive, even if they are not able to pursue it.

One possibility is that emotions make reflection difficult because they are

occasioned by thoughts of which we are not entirely aware in the first place. In the

section “On the Ideas We Have Without Being Aware of Them” Kant argues that “it is as

if just a few places on the vast map of our mind were illuminated.” He goes on to write:

“This can inspire wonder at our own being, for a higher power would need only cry “Let

there be light” and then without further action… there would be laid open before the eyes

half a universe”(A 135). The examples Kant gives in this section are of perceptions that

we do not fully perceive or beliefs we do not fully affirm. Also, unconscious ideas can be

repressed thoughts since “we have an interest in removing objects that are liked or

disliked by the imagination” (A 137). Since “emotion is surprise through sensation

whereby the composure of mind is suspended” it is plausible that negative emotions are

difficult to reflect on precisely because they involve pain (A 252). It may be the case that

we are unaware of the ideas in the first place because we have tried to push them out of

consciousness.

Such an account would be a significant improvement on Aristotle’s theory of

emotion since it can explain the reason that emotions do not always match up with their

corollary situations. Aristotle and Kant both discuss the emotion of anger. Aristotle holds

that it is a response to the judgment that one has been slighted. Kant agrees, but he

qualifies it by explaining that the surprise comes from “embarrassment at finding oneself

in an unexpected situation” (A 261). I think that Kant is right to suggest that negative

emotions are accompanied by some degree of embarrassment and that this furthers the

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disruption of thought. The causes of the embarrassment are necessarily personal, but

without this suggestion that we have become aware of something we would prefer to

hide, such as our own feeling of insecurity, we cannot explain why some slights are

angering while others leave us unscathed.

Passions are cognitive states, in a way that is more explicit than for emotions.

Emotions are pre-reflective, for Kant, but passions necessarily require reflection and

explicit cognitive involvement and commitment, and for that reason they are more

blameworthy. Kant defines passion as a kind of mental preoccupation:

since the passions can be coupled with the calmest reflection, one can easily see that they must neither be rash like the emotions, nor stormy and transitory; instead, they must take roots gradually and even be able to coexist with reason.(A §80)

Here, however, we must make a distinction between emotions and passions. The main

problem with emotions, for Kant, is that they thwart their own purposes. The main

problem with passions, on the other hand, is that they cause the subject to focus

obsessively on them to the detriment of other pursuits, both pragmatic and moral. It is not

the case, then, that a passion ought to be handled by discovering its inchoate purpose and

better serving it, but by eliminating it, or perhaps by pursuing it in a way that is consistent

with reason and morality.

Our discussion of intellectual feeling and the relationship between feeling and

reason opens up the possibility that Kant sees emotion on a spectrum with reason. Many

of Kant’s comments, especially his distinction between autonomy and heteronomy,

suggest a hard and fast dichotomy between causality from inclination and causality from

reason. (Fully addressing this aspect of Kant’s moral theory and its consequences for our

understanding of his theory of emotion is the main topic of chapter 6.) Nevertheless, there

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are reasons for thinking that Kant believes that sensibility, understanding, and reason

must cooperatively work together. Their interdependence suggests that Kant cannot insist

on a dichotomy between reason and emotion.

Kant’s discussion of the role of sensibility in the construction of speculative

knowledge in the first Critique shows that there is no functional trichotomy between

reason, the understanding, and sensibility.50 Although Kant is concerned about leaving

himself open to the criticism of idealism, and continually asserts that sensibility is passive

and receptive, a careful reading of the “Schematism” shows that the forms of sensibility,

space and time, are interconnected with the categories.51 In other words, we cannot have

an experience of space and time that is not also a product of the concepts of the

understanding. Their mutual implication goes deeper still, as we realize that categories

become objective precisely by being represented in space. Even in the Anthropology, we

see that Kant does not favor a dichotomy between the “rational” capacity of reason and

the “irrational” capacity of sensibility. Kant does not embrace the typical ruse of

skepticism, the worry that the senses are deceptive and deleterious for knowledge (A §10

&11). Instead, it is clear that sensibility is a part of the rational capacity: Kant holds sense

to be the lowest level of the cognitive faculty, and, as such, it is a necessary part of

50 There is no guarantee that Kant’s theory of sensibility from the first Critique remains consistent in his other works. Furthermore, the term “sensibility” does not have the same meaning throughout Kant’s philosophy since in the first Critique it is examined in its role in the construction of speculative knowledge, and in the second Critique, it is examined in its role in the construction of practical knowledge. In all cases though, it bears the weight of Kant’s worry about determinism since it is receptive to natural causes, either determination by experience of the external world or determination through the natural causes of natural desires. 51 My reading of the first Critique takes Kant at his word when he says that he is outlining the conditions for the possibility of experience (Erfahrung). Already this prejudices me toward a more idealist reading, and sets me against many interpreters who believe that Erfahrung only refers to propositional judgments. They take the “subject” and the “object” to refer to linguistic entities, not also to epistemological entities. I disclose my approach since my reading of Kantian sensibility is likely dependent on it.

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cognition (A§ 28).52 This developmental model of the relationship between sensation and

reason parallels the way that emotions can contain latent, unconscious thoughts.

Upon first reading Kant, one is struck both by his tendency to taxonomize and

make distinctions, categories, and faculties. Nietzsche’s joke about Kant is that whenever

he runs up against a difficult philosophical problem he creates a new faculty. If we take

Kant at his word, he is surely a very rigid thinker, and his philosophy is rife with

dichotomies and trichotomies. When diving deeper into his thought, however, we realize

that he does not, and can hardly be expected to, consistently adhere to his own strict

distinctions. Sensibility plays a role in the understanding; feeling plays a role in reason,

happiness plays a role in morality, and, as I have tried to show here, cognition plays a

role in emotion. Please do not misunderstand me: Kant’s distinctions are important and

cannot be overlooked, but they should not be taken out of context or as the final word on

the subject. The goal of the next section is to move on from the insight that Kant does not

reject the importance of emotion for happiness and morality wholesale and consider

Kant’s insights about emotion and his recommendations for better understanding and

responding to one’s emotions. In other words, we will consider Kant as a theorist of

emotional intelligence.

VI. Kant’s Theory of Emotional Intelligence

In Baron’s Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology, the lone apology is offered

for Kant’s deficient treatment of moral affect.53 Even though Baron, to my mind

52 To offer further evidence of this tendency we might point out that the third Critique argues that a judgment can be either theoretical, practical, or aesthetic. In its preface the third Critique is presented as the link between the first two Critiques because judgment has the power to “give the rule a priori to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure,” which is “the mediating link between the cognitive power and the power of desire”(CJ 5).

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successfully, defends Kant from the charge of moral coldness, as I have also done here,

she argues that Kant still sides with the Stoic against compassion, since “there cannot

possibly be a duty to increase the ills in the world” as the sharing the feeling of another’s

suffering would suggest (MM 6:457). To continue to fault Kant on this score, after

everything we have seen, is, I think, a failure of philosophical flexibility, especially since,

directly after this remark, Kant writes:

But while it is not in itself a duty to share the sufferings (as well the joys of others), it is duty to sympathize actively in their fate; and to this end it is therefore an indirect duty to cultivate the compassionate natural (aesthetic) feelings in us, and to make use of them as so many means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them. (MM 6:457) It is clear that Kant is struggling with his Stoic heritage. It is plainly wrong to call Kant a

Stoic, as his point here, about the proper, principled counter-part of feeling, since it is his

consistent refrain, should be clear enough.

Now that we have see the great importance that Kant places on natural feeling, we

are in a position to better understand his comprehensive position on emotion: affects are

kinds of feelings, but it is only a lack of virtue that fails to advance them to a state of

better understanding (MM 6:408). On the other hand, passions and inclinations—two

very similar notions—are usually assumed to be opposed to the moral maxim. Kant

argues that the person who is caught up in a passion cannot be happy because he naturally

feels the inclination toward freedom and yet feels controlled by the passion and so feels

torn by his inconsistent behavior (A §81). In other words, Kant recognizes that virtue is

related to emotional health.

When we compare Kant’s comments about emotion to Goleman’s theory of

emotional intelligence, we can easily make the argument that Kant has a theory of 53 Marcia Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).

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emotional intelligence. In fact, at first blush, Kant and Goleman look surprisingly similar.

Kant continually states that the rational mind must control or dominate the emotions in

order to cultivate virtue. In the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant defines virtue as the strength to

overcome the obstacles posed by natural inclination. Kant calls it being one’s own master

and ruling oneself (MM 6:407) (Meister und Herr zu sein). Just as Goleman speculates a

division between “heart” and “head” (or the amygdala and the hypothalamus, to put it in

official terms), Kant seemingly postulates a division amongst the faculties to allow for

the existence of pure practical reason. Plus, we are reminded that Goleman calls

emotional intelligence “character,” making his theory of emotional intelligence appear

remarkably similar to Kant’s discussion, in the Religion essay, of the conversion

experience that leads a person to choose principled moral action over following

inclination and therefore to have a good character.

Of course, my discussion in the second chapter of Goleman’s Emotional

Intelligence was largely critical, even to the point of denying that Goleman’s theory

refers to something that deserves to be called emotional intelligence. We must ask

whether Kant can do better. The goal of this dissertation is not to show that he can, since

Kantian moral theory can still offer direction for the cultivation of emotional intelligence

even if Kant himself did not have an adequate theory of emotional intelligence, but, still,

I believe that Kant’s offers an improvement over Goleman. My main complaint with

Goleman is that he represents the emotions as though they are in themselves irrational

and emotional intelligence as though it is primarily a matter of restraint and rational

domination. Kant clearly believes that the emotions are powerful, but he does not believe

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that they are immune to reason. In his discussion of the struggle between virtue and

inclination, in the Anthropology, Kant writes:

force accomplishes nothing in the struggle against sensuality and the inclinations; instead we must outwit these inclinations and, as Swift says, in order to save the ship, we must fling an empty tub to a whale so that he can play with it. (A§ 14)

This is a funny image. It suggests that the emotions are both powerful and stupid,

threatening to capsize the ship. (The metaphor of the ship and the ocean is a common one

in Western thought to emphasize the opposition between the steady control of reason and

the chaos of the emotions through which reason must navigate.) The emotions are so

powerful that, even though Kant sometimes uses metaphors that imply that they might be

overpowered, he does not believe that the emotions can be dominated into rational

submission: they must be met on their own terms. Even if it is possible, Kant, unlike

Goleman, does not believe that repression is desirable (as we see in his example of

unexpressed anger turning in to hate). Dealing with one’s emotions requires knowledge

of psychology, or animal psychology, as, like the whale, they sometimes must be out-

smarted. In this twist, Kant differs from Goleman, and this difference is productive in that

it makes room for us to wonder about the ways that the emotions might be tricked, or

trained, most effectively. Elaborating Kant’s theory of emotional intelligence requires

discovering means of behavioral training, but, as we shall see, it is not limited to this

direction of causality.

The metaphor of the whale, or of the master and slave, takes us straight to the

heart of our worry about Kant’s theory of emotion: within the framework of reason and

moral decision making, does Kant respect emotion and the other natural needs of humans

or does he deal with them harshly, as though they were, in fact, inimical to morality and

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psychological health? Answering this question requires that we examine Kant’s moral

theory on its own terms and not just through his comments on emotion. I will take up this

task in chapter 5, after having further explained the reasons that I believe that Kantian

moral theory can help promote emotional intelligence, even if only in spite of itself (in

chapter 4). Kant defines emotions as irrational and passions as immoral, but I have shown

that there are other emotions—things we, not Kant, would call emotions—that are neither

irrational nor immoral. Furthermore, Kant does not give us any reason to think that

emotions, even though they begin in a pre-reflective state, might not easily become

rational by having our conscious thought directed at them. By defining the pre-reflective

state of an emotion as problematic, Kant seems to be implying that we ought to reflect on

our emotions and integrate them into the rational mind. A sailor cannot reason with a

whale, so we should not hastily conclude that Kant holds the emotions to be animalistc.

In fact, we have already seen that he believes that affects and passions are uniquely

human.

Kant defines intelligence as the faculty of discovering the universal from the

particular (A §44). We might express this as learning from experience. He later defines it

as the uniting of “heterogeneous ideas, which often … lie apart from each other” (A §54).

Were we to formulate a Kantian theory of emotional intelligence, then, it might involve

rationally processing emotional impulses and gathering emotional knowledge about

ourselves so that me might learn from our emotional experiences and respond more

rationally in the future.

Guyer concludes, in examining the discussion of freedom and inclination in the

“Doctrine of Right” that,

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there is nothing intrinsically wrong with inclinations, but inclinations are just a part of the ordinary ebb and flow of nature, and there is therefore nothing uniquely valuable about them either. Human beings achieve their unique moral value by elevating themselves above their inclinations, which is not to say by eradicating their inclinations but by ruling them through reason.54

Perhaps a Kantian theory of emotional intelligence would involve precisely this rational

comprehension and control of one’s emotions, with the “free” cultivation of morally and

intellectually important emotions thrown in (MM 6:456-7).55 (In exploring the idea that

we have a duty to rationally instruct feeling, Guyer revisits Williams’s drowning wife

example. (Williams famously argues against moral theory in general that rationally

considering whether or not one should save one’s wife over some other person introduces

“one thought too many” into the moral decision-making process.) Guyer humorously

introduces the possibility that one may not want to save one’s wife at all.56 Perhaps there

is the inclination to save a younger woman on the ship with whom this imaginary cruise-

goer has been flirting. Clearly, then, following one’s inclination involves having “one

thought too few,” and rationally evaluating one’s feelings is preferable both morally and

pragmatically.)

Guyer’s interpretation is plausible, but I suggest that there might be even more

reason to think that feeling and reason are not inimical: again, there may be an internal,

developmental connection between them. My argument that Kant holds a cognitive

theory of emotion, and my speculations about Kant’s theory of the unconscious—an

unconscious in which pre-reflective thoughts reside—open up a further dimension of a

Kantian theory of emotional intelligence. Kant believes in an unconscious, and many

54 Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 350. 55 See Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 198. Sherman expresses this distinction in terms of the “immediate” versus the “practical”; Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, 33. 56 Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, p. 393.

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aspects of his philosophy reinforce this belief, counting everything we see and yet are not

aware of as unconscious perception (A §5).57 His notion is not far removed from Freud’s

notion of latent or pre-consciousness. Furthermore, Kant does not believe that those

things of which we are unaware are any more animalistic than those of which we are

aware.58 In other words, he does not posit any particular difficulty in making unconscious

thoughts conscious, except for the possibility that we might not want them to be.

Remarkably, Freud is similarly aware that the unconscious may be the playground for

underdeveloped or confused intellectual ideas, as his theory of dream interpretation

makes clear. Kant’s point is that these obscure ideas can still affect our behavior. This is

an important insight to keep in mind when seeking to understand the ways that we work

through our emotions: an emotion can also be a product of a confused idea or false

assumption.

In concluding, I will point to some of, what we might call, Kant’s

recommendations for cultivating emotional intelligence. For example, if one avoided the

“passions” that Kant describes as vices, then one would, it seems, be more emotionally

intelligent. Furthermore, emotional intelligence does seem to require the well-ordered

value scheme that Kant praises along with overcoming of selfishness. For example, one

should work to transform one’s selfish desire for vengeance—a vicious passion—into a

universal concern for justice. One could do this by discovering that the natural and

rational sense of justice sits at the root of the passion for vengeance, as Kant speculates,

57 For example, the argument from the first Critique that all phenomena have a thing-in-itself that we do not experience, which applies also to the self and internal perception. There is a thing-in-itself that underlies inner sense. This idea is clearly similar to the notion of an unconscious. 58 Surprisingly, in his section “On the Ideas We Have Without Being Aware of Them,” Kant considers the cultural dissembling involved in obscuring the purpose of having sex unconscious since they are obscure and confused ideas compared to their real intent.

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and by striving to bring the emotion of vengeance more closely in line with its latent

cognitive origin. The benefits of such work would not be merely moral, but also

psychological.

One should not try to put oneself above others by controlling them with honor,

authority, or money—as one does in the case of ambition, lust for authority, and

avarice—but rather one should value other people as highly as one values oneself and

have a sense of self-worth that is based on the mutual worth, not the deprecation of

others. It is difficult to say whether these vices are caused by a lack of emotional

intelligence or are themselves the manifestations of such a lack, but it seems that, in

either case, working to overcome these vices—although, to be effective, such work may

require other forms of psychological therapy—would promote both emotional

intelligence and morality.

Kant speaks out against emotional delusion. By “delusion” he understands “the

internal practical deception of taking subjective reasons for objective ones”(A §86). Kant

gives over-valuing past-times and superstition as examples of delusions. It seems that

many contemporary behaviors fit under this characterization. Indeed, there are probably

more examples of this now than in Kant’s time. Certain common behaviors in our culture,

like shopping for recreation, are not only mistaken for important activities, but also come

to be associated with psychological maladies. The, perhaps joking, term “retail therapy”

indicates that consumerism is believed to be a treatment for sadness and other negative

emotions. Kant’s analysis seems to be closer to the truth, that these frivolous compulsions

are more often an emotional expression gone awry or the harmful perpetuation of

emotional consternation rather than any form of therapy.

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Kant discusses “mental ailments,” like “melancholia” and “mania,” as well as

many other habits of thought in the first section of the Anthropology, “On the Cognitive

Faculty,” and many of his observations are relevant to our discussion of emotional

intelligence. Although he believes that emotions and passions are a part of the conative

faculty, not the cognitive faculty, the discussion of these emotional ailments of the

cognitive faculty shows that emotions are cognitive. In his section “On Self-

Observation,” Kant warns against self-indulgent, or narcissistic, introspection:

To scrutinize the various acts of the imagination within me, when I call them forth, is indeed worth reflection, as well as necessary and useful for logic and metaphysics. But to wish to play the spy upon one’s self, when those acts come to mind unsummoned and of their own accord (which happens through the play of the unpremeditatedly creative imagination), is to reverse the natural order of the cognitive powers, since then the rational elements do not take the lead (as they should) but instead follow behind. (A §4)

Kant’s description of melancholy is similar to his description of hypochondria (A §50).

Melancholics allow their moods to hold court instead of rationally evaluating them. This

theory might serve therapists who find that introspection seems to be making their

patients more solipsistic. It also applies to those who might believe that pre-reflective

emotions are more authentic. For example, it is a common belief that many forms of

“letting it out,” such as “journaling,” help one work through emotions. Kant’s

observation, on the other hand, suggests that simply expressing or observing our

emotions is not sufficient to work through them and enact positive behavioral changes.

Of course, self-observation is a necessary part of self-discovery, which Kant

counts as a talent of the cognitive faculty. He defines “sagacity” as discovering

“something (that lies hidden either in ourselves or somewhere else)”(A §56). In order to

achieve successful self-discovery, he advises that one start with a hypothesis and test it,

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playing the scientist to oneself. Of course, self-discovery is also a moral duty since Kant

places such supreme importance on being aware of one’s motivation. The first command

of duties to oneself is to know oneself (MM 6:441).

The Anthropology suggests that the practice that leads to habituation is the best

means of educating one’s negative emotions. There Kant equates freedom and habit in a

way that strictly opposes the criticisms of Aristotle offered in the Metaphysics of Morals.

He writes “such a habit [achieved in overcoming shyness] produces freedom of mind”(A

§78). He supports Hume’s advice for the fear of public speaking: begin with groups in

which one feels totally comfortable and gradually increase the level of discomfort until

one feels confident in front of strangers (A §78). Nevertheless, contra Aristotle, virtue

must be based on a rational comprehension of the moral law, not unthinking habit.59

Kant states that the “greatest sensuous pleasure (Sinnengenuß), which is not

accompanied by any loathing at all, is found under healthy conditions of resting after

work”(A §87). This statement deserves assent if we assume that he refers to work that is

taken to be worthy by the worker. Doing work that one deems pointless, demeaning, or

coerced, leaves one feeling annoyed and resentful. This characterization of the “highest

physical good” parallels the “Highest Good” or “highest ethicophysical good” because

each describes a pleasure that is predicated on self-satisfaction. The “highest

ethicophysical good” is “good living that is curbed [or regulated] by virtue” (A§ 88).

When taken as an expression of emotional intelligence, Kant highest physical good and

59 Kant also criticizes the practice of cultivating virtue by instilling good habits in the first section of the Anthropology, § 12. This does not seem to be a contradiction, because Kant’s recommendation that we form good habits does take them to be based on reason. Furthermore, not all action is moral action and so not all action need to be based on a rational comprehension of the moral law. There is no reason to think that the majority of our behaviors should not be based on habit. In the Lectures Kant does recommend developing good moral habits (p. 46), which does contradict his criticisms of Aristotle in the “Doctrine of Virtue.”

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highest ethicophysical good show us that psychological health and happiness can be

achieved when the expression of emotion matches the subjective, moral evaluation of the

emotion and both match up to an honest representation of the situation.

Of course, even with all of these psychologically astute comments from the

Anthropology, it may still seem like a stretch to grant that Kant has a theory of emotional

intelligence. One goal of this dissertation is to show that Kantian moral theory promotes

emotional intelligence, even if only in spite of Kant’s explicitly negative evaluation of

emotion. This chapter has shown that even Kant’s explicit theory of emotion is not as bad

as it looks and goes some distance in itself informing a theory of emotional intelligence.

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CHAPTER IV

KANTIAN MORAL THEORY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

In this chapter I argue that Kantian moral theory helps us to better understand the

nature of emotional intelligence. This chapter offers the crux of the dissertation’s

argument: moral concern, as Kant describes it, helps one to be emotionally intelligent.

Indeed, virtue, i.e., Kantian virtue, and emotional intelligence are closely intertwined

concepts. This argument will strike many as clearly wrong, since Kant is most often

criticized for failing to grasp the moral importance of emotion. Although I do not find

every aspect of Kantianism acceptable, we will see that most of the common criticisms of

his account of emotions are wrong-headed and based on the dualistic prejudice that the

emotions cannot be intelligent. Nevertheless, my argument here calls for a considerable

amount of interpretative work, as I defend Kant against common misunderstandings and

criticisms, as well as separate off those of Kant’s statements that are unacceptable and

show that Kantian moral theory can function coherently without them.

In order to give my reader a sense of what is to be gained by my argument, I

begin this chapter as if the interpretive work had already been accomplished, explaining

the ways that Kantianism promotes emotional intelligence and postponing the lion’s

share of my defense of Kantian moral theory until the next two chapters. Kantian moral

theory has been described as cognitivist, universalist, and formalist.1 Kant’s formalism is

seen by many to be most disagreeable; along with his notion of autonomy, it is taken to

1 Most notably by Jürgen Habermas, in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen, Introduction by Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995).

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imply that the emotions should not play a role in moral decision-making. I delay my

discussion of formalism and autonomy until the fifth and sixth chapters, respectively, and

focus here on moral cognitivism and moral universalism. My reader will, therefore, have

to combine the ideas presented in this chapter with the interpretive work contained in the

next two. This may require some amount of patience; nevertheless it seems more

interesting to begin with the positive.

Overall, this chapter discusses the benefits Kantian moral theory stands to offer

both to a theory of emotional intelligence and to the practical task of developing

emotional intelligence. This chapter is overflowing with ideas and could be a project by

itself; so as a chapter it is necessarily limited and schematic, filled with starting points for

further discussion. In the first section I explain Kantian cognitivism, and I show that it

facilitates self-analysis and self-improvement; furthermore, it yields self-esteem. I argue

that Kant’s notion of self-esteem is the most productive one for a theory of emotional

intelligence. Acknowledging and prioritizing moral value in our lives puts us on the right

path for developing true self-esteem, as well as better understanding our emotions. In the

second section I explain Kantian universalism, and I argue that it entails a process of both

moral and psychological therapy, moving from the unconscious and possibly selfish to

the well-understood and inclusive perspective. I liken the emphasis Kant places on

truthfulness to the psychological virtue of transparency. The third section further

develops this discussion of respect by exploring the interrelatedness of respecting oneself

and respecting others, as well as the psychological reasons for selfishness that undermine

respect. I argue that Kantian respect must have a positive as well as a negative meaning

and that respect is an integral part of developing close relationships as well as navigating

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all varieties of conflict. In the fourth section I explore the ways that moral self-

development creates a more harmoniously integrated self, and the ways that Kantian

moral theory in particular is able to provide an account of the way that moral worth is

teleologically organizing. In conclusion, I reflect on the Kantian value of consistency,

especially in the face of the many unachievable, yet virtuous, ideals. Morality is a

function of reason for Kant, and we must remember that reason is a process. Total

consistency is stagnancy, and it is the inevitable fluidity of life for which moral and

psychological health equip us.

I. Cognitivism: Self-Scrutiny and Self-Esteem

Kantian moral theory is cognitivist, i.e., it holds that moral statements have truth

conditions. Non-cognitivists hold that moral judgments are forms of non-cognitive self-

expression, such as desires or statements of approval or disapproval. We can see

immediately that moral non-cognitivism assumes a non-cognitive theory of emotion;

Kant, as we have already seen, has a cognitive theory of emotion. Statements of approval

or disapproval are taken to be non-cognitive by the non-cognitivists because they cannot

be rationally justified. Morality is grounded in subjective attitudes or prescriptions, for

the non-cognitivist, not the other way around. In other words, emotions and other

subjective states are taken to be the ground floor of subjectivity, below which one cannot

get. Kant, on the other hand, is a moral realist: he believes that behaviors and intentions

really are good or bad, they are not merely subjectively thought or felt to be good or bad.

The idea that moral judgments express facts about the world does not quite

capture the full force of cognitivism. Cognitivist moral theories imply that moral

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judgments are things about which we should do something. If a moral judgment is not

really a judgment at all, but merely an expression of my own personal taste, as the

expressivist holds, then my judgment that dog-fighting is wrong, for example, does not

compel me to enter into a discussion with you about dog-fighting if you disagree with

me.2 I can simply say: to each his own. If I see dogs being fought then, even though I feel

that it is wrong, I need not be compelled to stop it. I would just think: “Oh, they might not

think it’s wrong; I should just leave so I will not have to be confronted with my feeling of

its wrongness.” It is this moral denial, or moral weakness or cowardliness—you will

support these strong terms if you agree with moral realism—that is a genuine moral, and,

as I will argue, psychological problem.

It is my contention that cognitivism, with its encouragement to seriously engage

in moral discourse and enquiry, promotes the development of emotional intelligence. The

means by which I will make this argument is clearly question-begging: There really are

moral truths and so taking them seriously requires that we express and promote our

2 I do not believe that Stevenson’s theory of emotivism is recognizable as emotivism; see C. L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944). In Stevenson’s own words, his theory is an “analytic or methodological study” of normative ethics and not itself normative (p. 1.) Although emotivism is also clearly a metaethical theory, it is also normative, as it implies that moral argumentation is irrational insofar as it entails attempting to change people’s values, not just their beliefs about facts. Stevenson’s emotivism has no such implication, as he agrees with the Rachels’ account of moral reasoning (See, for example, 27, 36, 139; see 173 for a discussion of the logical-like validity of ethical judgments). Stevenson’s emotivism is more of an empirical study of ethical discourse and does not tell us anything that runs counter to common sense. Nor is it particularly interested in emotion as a key concept. Still, Stevenson argues that his own theory has much in common with Ayer’s, except for that it does not intend to disparage ethical argument and inquiry as unscientific. We can see that that which it shares with Ayer falls to the same criticisms as Ayer, and his differences, as he strays from non-cognitivism, make him unrecognizable as an emotivist. In addition, Stevenson seems to be even lass equipped to maintain a distinction between the expression, or what he calls “giving vent” to (37-38), and assertion of emotion. It is unclear whether he intends to uphold Ayer’s distinction, since he translates ethical statements into statements about subjective approval. One might argue that his distinction between descriptive and emotive meaning, or the disposition of words to affect cognition and the disposition of words to affect feeling (71), equaling roughly a distinction between denotation and connotation, does this job. Although, for Ayer, the assertion of emotion counts as a factual statement, and therefore has descriptive meaning in Stevenson’s sense, Stevenson’s notion of emotive meaning is a property of the sign, not of the speaker, making it more like a connotation, and is therefore unrelated to Ayer’s distinction.

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convictions, helping us to forge a harmonious relationship between our internal and

external lives. This argument will do nothing to win over the non-cognitivist. He, in fact,

holds the opposite to be true: those who believe that there are moral truths tend to be

stubborn and judgmental; they have difficulty being sensitive to differences of opinion

and situation, and they usually cling to their belief-system at the expense of their

happiness and psychological well-being, not to mention their relationships. In fact, the

desire to dampen destructive moral argumentation seems to be one of the main

motivations behind non-cognitivism. It is this idea that we must keep clearly in focus as

the main objection. Still, in order to prevent this criticism from winning over the reader

from the beginning, we must ask whether or not we usually mount this kind of assault

against those with whom we agree or if it is not rather the case that people mount an

attack against those who are stubborn and self-righteous only when they disagree with

them, and yet cheer on people who have equally strong convictions, but whom they take

to be right. Still, the moral non-cognitivist will always be uncomfortable with this

absolutist talk of “wrong” and “right,” and I do not think that I can come up with an

argument that might convince a non-cognitivist that there are moral truths. My argument

will retain this question-begging aspect, but I do think that I can shed some light on the

psychological element of the debate.

To a certain extent, cognitivism expresses pre-reflective moral experience. We

normally take moral judgments to be objective, and we normally believe that we must

adjudicate moral disagreements with reasons. On the other hand, how often do we make

decisions based on moral reasons as opposed to pragmatic reasons or preferences? How

often do we endeavor to defend our beliefs in the face of opposition? Or risk something

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in order to do that which we know to be right? Of course, some people do these things

more often than others, but for all people the demands of morality are experienced as

compulsions, yet following though on these demands poses a challenge. Hence moral

relativism, or backing down from defending one’s beliefs, is an equally natural stance.

Additionally, part of the non-cognitivist’s objection to moral realism and argumentation

is that zealous attempts to convert another person are often insensitive to the validity of

the opposite position. Perhaps if we change the focus away from moral argument toward

seeking and pursuing the truth, both in communication and alone, part of this objection

will fall away.

Kant sees morality as a challenge. He exhorts that we must fulfill our moral duties

not because they happen to suit some other agenda we may have, but because we respect

them as moral duties. For Kant, the supreme condition of moral goodness is a good will;

yet a good will is something toward which we must continually strive. He is skeptical that

anyone can simply know that he or she has a good will; instead, Kant believes that it is

always likely that we choose to conform to the demands of morality merely because it is

easy for us or because we have some other cooperating motivation. For this reason,

morality requires both self-scrutiny and self-improvement. It is difficult to see how one

can be motivated to morally improve oneself if one does not seriously believe that there

are moral truths.3

3 One might object that we can strive to improve relative to subjective goals. This is true, but I am not sure how satisfied we can be with these goals if we do not perceive them to transcendent. For example, take the goal of being a good mother. If I believe that my idea of being a good mother is purely relative to me (which is not the same thing as believing that different families and different children have different needs) why would I think that my idea is worth pursuing? Perhaps my child might have another idea of what I should have done when he grows up, or perhaps my own mother keeps telling me that I have the wrong idea. Why would I pursue my idea unless I thought it were the right idea?

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Kantian cognitivism inspires, and requires, self-improvement, which is based on

self-understanding. In the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant argues that “the first command of all

duties to oneself” is “to ‘know (scrutinize, fathom) yourself’”(MM, 6:441).

That is, know your heart—whether it is good or evil, whether the source of your actions is pure or impure, and what can be imputed to you as belonging originally to the substance of human being or as derived (acquired or developed) and belonging to your moral condition. (MM, 6:441).

Here Kant makes use of a dichotomy between nature and morality in order to recommend

categories for judging ourselves: either a motivation is derived from our nature as a

human being or it is pure and moral. Still, morality must be developed from nature. Kant

continues:

Moral cognition of oneself, which seeks to penetrate into the depths (the abyss) of one’s heart which are quite difficult to fathom, is the beginning of all human wisdom. For in the case of a human being, the ultimate wisdom, which consists in the harmony of a human being’s will with its final end, requires him first to remove the obstacle within (an evil will actually present in him) and then to develop the original predisposition to a good will within him, which can never be lost. (Only the descent into the hell of self-cognition can pave the way to godliness.)” (MM, 6:441)

Self-knowledge is the foundation of all wisdom. Of course, we have the Delphic Oracle

and not Kant to thank for this gem, but it remains as persuasive an idea—even more so in

the Modern era where knowledge becomes more completely based in the subject rather

than the polis. Kant similarly conceives of virtue subjectively, in terms of one’s

intentions, and writes that self-scrutiny is the first step to “the ultimate wisdom” because

it makes personal change possible. We must uncover our motivations so that we can

make sure that they accord with our “final end,” which is the Highest Good, or morally

worthy happiness. Oftentimes our motivations are hidden. Especially if we have selfish

motivations or feelings that we unconsciously judge to be unacceptable, we try to hide

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them from ourselves. The “evil will” that Kant refers to is one that resolves to seek

personal interests over fulfilling one’s moral duties. We often fight against learning that

we harbor selfish desires, and being forced to realize that we have them can be painful.

This is why Kant calls self-cognition a “hell.”

In the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant outlines the duties one owes to oneself and the

duties one owes to others: to ourselves we owe the duty of seeking our own perfection; to

others we owe the duty of promoting happiness. Pursuing one’s own perfection requires

the development of one’s understanding and the cultivation of one’s will. The goal of this

cultivation is a good will:

(1) A human being has a duty to raise himself from the crude state of his nature, from his animality (quoad actum), more and more toward humanity, by which he alone is capable of setting himself ends; he has a duty to diminish his ignorance by instruction and to correct his errors. And it is not merely that technically practical reason counsels him to do this as a means to his further purposes (or art); morally practical reason commands it absolutely and makes this end his duty, so that he may be worthy of the humanity that dwells within him. (2) A human being has a duty to carry the cultivation of his will up to the purest virtuous disposition, in which the law becomes also the incentive to his actions that conform with duty and he obeys the law from duty. This disposition is inner morally practical perfection. Since it is a feeling of the effect that the lawgiving will which the human being exercises on his capacity to act in accordance with his will, it is called moral feeling, a special sense (sensus moralis),4 as it were… it is a moral perfection, by which one makes one’s object every particular end that is also a duty. (MM, 6:387)

As we can see, there are two levels of self-cultivation. First, we must cultivate our ability

to think rationally in general: we must become more self-conscious in our setting of ends

for ourselves, and we must strive to overcome our mistaken judgments. This level might

be seen as being purely pragmatic, but Kant argues that there is a moral dimension to it

since we owe it to ourselves to treat ourselves with this degree of self-respect. Here 4 Here Kant is obviously referring to a “sense” as in a mental ability, not the “sense,” or meaning, of the term, as he does in Groundwork 442.

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we are reminded of the discussion in the Groundwork about the duty to cultivate one’s

talents.

Second, setting ends for oneself requires—recalling the duty to scrutinize

oneself—that one be aware of one’s ends as they stand so that one can know if one truly

affirms them. In the quote above we see the opposite side of the coin: only when one is

truly capable of self-consciously setting ends for oneself, can one strive to take on the

fulfillment of duty as one’s end. It may seem redundant to argue that one has a moral

duty to make oneself able and willing to perform moral duties, but drawing this

connection between moral action and intention and the entirety of one’s personality

shows us the special, yet natural and teleological, role that moral reason plays in human

consciousness.

In reflecting on Kant’s requirement that we scrutinize ourselves and try to morally

improve ourselves, might the non-cognitivist object that Kant takes morality too

seriously, demanding far too much of us and prompting neurosis? That would be a good

criticism if Kant held that morality commands us to actually achieve perfection. Instead,

we are only commanded to take perfection as our end. Following Aristotle, not the Stoics,

Kant takes virtue to be a stochastic skill.5 (Kant’s conviction that we cannot achieve

perfection is a premise in his—admittedly strange—argument for an afterlife.) Even

understanding this, many moral theorists still allege that Kant places the bar for morality

too high, arguing that a moral theory should have a category of the supererogatory (those

actions that are good but not required by duty, and, hence, optional).6

5 I am swayed by Jakob Klein’s argument, in his “The Stoic Archer,” that Aristotle, and not the Stoics, takes virtue to be a stochastic skill, (paper presented at Colgate University, February 2009). 6 Supererogationists include J.O. Urmson, David Heyd, and Roderick Chisolm.

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There is a genuine disagreement between Kant and the supererogationists, who

believe that duty is something with which we should sometimes be finished and that

morality is a constraint on our lives that is at the same level as other constraints, such as

needing to work or complete other chores, and must be negotiated accordingly. Although

it is the legacy of liberal Kantianism that inspires the supererogationist view of morality,

as we have seen, Kant understands morality and moral duty in terms of virtue and

character, which involves the orientation and development of all of our human abilities,

and the purity of the good will. Character is something that underlies all of our choices; it

is not a task among others, but the way that we approach all tasks, indeed, our lives in

general. To ask that we might sometimes be able to leave off with moral duties is simply

to misunderstand the nature of virtue. Morality is the condition for the worth of

happiness, and our lives in general; it is always in effect.

One might think that the meaning of “wide” and “imperfect” duties is that they

are more lax.7 The opposite is closer to the truth. The duties to oneself and others

corresponds to needs that are unending. Virtues are imperfect duties because it is

impossible for a moral theory to tell us which people we should help when or exactly

what needs to be done in order to perfect ourselves. Not only is it unfeasible for morality

to give such specific advice, it is undesirable. Applying to our inner lives, virtues

necessarily involve practical reason, in other words, being virtuous is a product of

thinking for oneself. Of course, the importance of thinking for oneself does not mean that

anything goes, but every situation will be different and negotiating those differences day

7 Hill argues that Kant’s notion of imperfect duties takes the place of the category of the supererogatory because it involves the choice of when one is to fulfill them. As Baron suggests, this is not entirely true, because, we are always required to take them on as our maxims. In other words, we cannot choose to sometimes have a virtuous character and sometimes not.

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by day is a necessary part of living and having relationships. Also the very idea of having

an answer to the question of “how much?” should appear strange when we consider our

normal, moral engagements. I cannot imagine a life wherein there is such an answer. It

seems as though having an answer would entail that one stops feeling the unending need.

Not feeling this need would undermine moral feeling altogether. We feel the needs of

other people and ourselves, we are morally commanded to feel these needs, and, yet, we

cannot address them completely, nor are we morally commanded to address them

completely. Understandably, this is a hard reality for people to live with, and so having a

good moral attitude is also necessary, and actually feeling that one is progressing and

succeeding in helping other people helps to secure this good attitude.

Kant does not offer guidance for deciding how much of our lives we should

devote to others: in the Religion essay he states that we should do as much good as we

can. Still, the fact that moral duty is always in effect does not mean that we must devote

all of our time to cultivating self-perfection and promoting the happiness of others.

Instead, it means that we must always be the kind of people who cultivate self-perfection

and promote the happiness of others. Roughly speaking, we engage in the specific actions

that contribute to fulfilling these wide duties when there is a need (in the case of self-

perfection) or (in the case of promoting the happiness of others) whenever we can. Again,

I cannot possibly even begin to give a more specific answer to the question of “how

much?” Still, even when we are not doing something that is easily recognizable as

perfecting ourselves or helping others, the maxims to do so are still active in our lives,

informing all other actions and values. A maxim is a guiding principle, and moral

principles are the ones that should guide one’s entire character. Baron argues that Kant is

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a rigorist when it comes to perfecting ourselves, i.e., that we should always strive to be as

good as we possibly can, but that we are allowed more latitude when it comes to helping

others.8 The duties that we owe to ourselves are more fundamental since a good character

is a condition for carrying out the duty to help others, since it facilitates feeling the moral

need and judging when and whom to help.9

Does Kant’s statement that it is our duty to scrutinize ourselves in the effort to

cultivate a morally good character lead to neurosis? Does it lead to a person who thinks

about morality too much? Kant does not think that this is the case. First of all, as Baron

points out, Kant criticizes the moral fanatic, i.e., the person who makes amoral choices,

such as what color of shirt to wear, into moral choices. Clearly, some things require

moral deliberation and others do not. The problem is that, in this age of global trade

wherein our choices implicate us in thousands of relationships of which we are mostly

unaware, we are confronted with legitimate moral questions everywhere we turn and we

cannot possibly address all of them. The supererogationist would have us ignore these

moral demands that are beyond our realm of reasonable achievement. This strikes me as

hailing insensitivity and ignorance. Not only must we think for ourselves, but, more

importantly, hammering on the question “but how much do I have to do!?” betrays a

stingy character that is only interested in doing the bare minimum. It seems that we will

always feel that there is more to do, and that we will always feel regret for not being able

8 Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology, especially chapter 1, “Kantian Ethics and the Supererogatory” and chapter 2, “Minimal Morality, Moral Excellence, and the Supererogatory.” 9 See Baron, “Latitude in Kant’s Imperfect Duties” in Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology.

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to do more.10 This feeling goes along with the earnest attempt to do all that we can and

causes us to continue to ask ourselves whether or not we could possibly do more.11

It is important that we not think that the person who is overfull with moral

demands will necessarily lose hope. Continually questioning whether we could do more

does not preclude some degree of moral self-satisfaction. While he may look neurotic to

those who are morally apathetic, the Kantian moral agent will not be given to despair:

indeed, it seems that working for progress is the only way to overcome despair. Making

this point highlights the extreme difference between the moral notion of self-esteem and

the popular, almost empty notion of self-esteem. True self-esteem is not only compatible

with, but dependent on, self-scrutiny and self-criticism. Self-esteem is based on self-

respect, and self-respect, for Kant, is based on respect for the moral law.

The term “self-esteem” has recently fallen out of favor in popular discourse

because it has proven itself to express a hollow idea. Public psychologists used to argue

that adolescents needed positive self-esteem, and now they argue that adolescents are full

of themselves for having been praised without warrant. Aside from the fact that it is

unhealthy for one to irrationally hate oneself, there is little content to the idea that one

10 In my mind Oskar Schindler is shown to be a truly good person only at the end of the Holocaust when he emotionally regretted not having done more. This feeling is not a sign of neurosis; it is the pain of loss and vulnerability that is a necessary part of any love, in this case, the love of humanity. 11 Urmson argues that if a moral code is not simple to understand and fulfill, people will give up on being moral entirely. Kant, on the other hand, holds that it is not the job of a moral theory to make decisions for people. Kantian moral theory provides guidance for moral reasoning, not the answers. If it is the case that our duties can be prescribed in their detailed specificity without us having to think about them, then it would be possible for people to only feel the call of duty when they should and will fulfill it. On the other hand, in the real world, where the fulfilling of our imperfect duties requires practical reason, it makes sense that one’s feelings of moral compulsion will not always equate with one’s decision to act, both because good characters will feel a call to help others before they adjudicate whether or not such is the proper time, and because it is not possible to say when it is objectively morally required that we fulfill our imperfect duties. Kant does not let us off the hook easily: if everyone does not feel that fixing the problems of the world is her responsibility, then there is no chance that moral progress will ever be made. Thomas Auxter, Kant’s Moral Teleology (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1982). I am indebted to Marcia Baron for this reference.

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should like oneself: What is there to like? Kant, on the other hand, gives this notion its

proper content, as he spends a considerable amount of time discussing its proper meaning

and, since it must be conditioned by moral worth, its means of achievement.12

Positive self-esteem has two meanings, or perhaps we might say, two-levels of

ascending meaning for Kant. First, positive self-esteem comes from self-respect, or

dignity, that one owes to oneself simply because one is human.13 Kant argues that we

have a duty to respect ourselves, just as we have a duty to respect humanity in general.

This general duty translates into our behaviors in a variety of concrete ways: “Be no

man’s lacky.—Do not let others tread with impunity with your rights.—…Do not be a

parasite or a flatterer” etc… (MM, 6:436).14 In addition, we should treat our bodies with

respect, never as a mere means. This idea of self-respect is not just a feeling, but a

command to treat oneself in certain ways: to stand up for oneself and not to harm oneself,

for example. We owe this to ourselves no matter what. Humans, as persons, have value

and deserve respect because they are capable of morally practical reason. It does not

matter that a person may have behaved badly in the past, she is still capable of morally

practical reason and has inherent value because of it.

This orientation for self-esteem is important because it rescues us from trying to

base our worth on comparisons with other people, on acquiring material goods, or the

satisfaction of other inclinations. Judging that one is better than someone else in some

respect, or accomplishing a certain goal, may make one feel good, but this feeling is 12 Robert Gressis discusses two false notions of self-esteem that lead to the justification of evil: the idea that one is as good as or better than one’s peers, and the idea that one deserves a break from moral rules sometimes. Robert Gressis, “How to Be Evil: The Moral Psychology of Immorality,” in The New Kant, ed. Pablo Muchnik (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008). 13 When discussing gratitude in the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant refers to “real self esteem” as “pride in the dignity of humanity of one’s own person”(6:459). 14 In his discussion of lust, Kant argues that “complete abandonment of oneself to animal inclination… deprives him of all respect for himself”(6:425).

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destined to be fleeting since we must necessarily question the worth of this other person

or of the goal. Unless we tie our self-regard to inherent moral worth, we will discover that

it is flimsy. Self-respect is not something that we owe to ourselves because we are

special, nor is our respect for other people contingent on their past behaviors or

achievements. Kant argues that recognizing that all people have a moral nature and

respecting them because of it will “dispel fanatical contempt for oneself” and make us

realize that humanity can never be held contemptible (MM, 6:441). For example, Kant

believes in the death-penalty because he holds that this punishment best respects the

humanity of the criminal, not because he takes her to be contemptible. We might disagree

about whether or not attempts at criminal reform can better demonstrate respect for

humanity, but the point is that the punishment is addressed to the rational nature of the

criminal, not his past deeds. We must always see ourselves in this light: in terms of our

inner worth and potential, not in terms of performance or a comparison with other

people.15

The first level of self-esteem is a duty we owe to ourselves.16 The second is

something that we achieve: we can feel good about ourselves when we have done

something good. The second level of positive self-esteem follows from our duty to know

and judge ourselves: when we succeed in behaving morally we feel our moral worth and

esteem ourselves positively. To morally evaluate oneself is a duty:

Impartiality in appraising oneself in comparison with the law, and sincerity in acknowledging to oneself one’s inner moral worth or lack of

15 This suggests that children do not need activities at which to succeed in order to have self-esteem; it is failures, not successes, which offer the best opportunity for teaching real self-esteem. 16 Kant seems to be self-contradictory on this point, arguing first that self-esteem is a member of the class of natural feelings that we cannot be said to have a duty to acquire (6:399) and then that “self-esteem is a duty of man to himself”(6:435). Furthermore, if we did not naturally respect the moral law, we would have no basis for self-respect (6:402).

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worth are duties that follow directly from this first command to cognize oneself. (find this citation.)

Kant argues that the concept of virtue contains the idea that the moral disposition is itself

“sublime”(MM, 6:435). When we conceive of self-esteem in this way, it makes it clear

that it is subordinate to morality; indeed, Kant argues that self-esteem contains the feeling

of humility within it because it implies a comparison of ourselves with the moral law, in

comparison to which one always feels subordinate.17 Self-esteem is closely related to that

form of self-respect we feel for ourselves, not just because we are human, but because

we, in fulfilling our duties, feel our own freedom, which makes us feel that we have

worth.18

Proper self-esteem is the ability to be satisfied with oneself and be at peace

because one believes that one has accomplished that which is most important. It is like

resting after a hard day’s work.19 Of course, this does not mean that we can ever be

finished with the demands of morality, rather cultivating a good will ensures that we will

be vigilant in pursuing virtue. Without this commitment we are plagued by thoughts of

our inadequacy:

[A] righteous person cannot think himself happy if he is not first conscious of his righteousness; for, with that attitude, the reprimands—which his own way of thinking would compel him to cast upon himself in the case of transgressions—and the moral self-condemnation would rob him of all enjoyment of the agreeableness that his state might otherwise contain. (CPr R, 116)

Even for those without the virtuous attunement between happiness and morality, all

people experience compulsion by the moral law, and therefore fulfilling it carries some

17 Ibid. 18 See the Critique of Practical Reason, 161. The second Critique is, in general, more focused on the dichotomy between inclination and duty, and so it casts self-esteem in terms of the special status that humans achieve through being aware of their ability to transcend, and so transcending, all inclinations. 19 In the Anthropology, Kant describes resting after work as the “highest physical good”(§87).

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amount of satisfaction for most people. In other words, even those people who

irrationally hate themselves can hopefully gain the second level of self-esteem, although

it will perhaps have a shaky foundation.20

Kant’s contrast between happiness, a term that is not necessarily positive for him,

and morally worthy happiness can help us to further understand the true meaning of self-

esteem.21 Self-satisfaction is distinct from happiness, the latter of which he believes is

only a product of the fulfillment of the inclinations, if this is even possible.22 Kant argues

that inclinations vary and the pursuit of their total satisfaction always only creates “an

even greater void than one had meant to fill” (CPrR 118). Self-satisfaction, on the other

hand, is a true respite, as it is based on proper moral understanding and estimation—the

understanding that inclination is not as important as morality. Self-esteem is the feeling

of being happy and deserving it; or, we might say that, self-esteem is the feeling of

desert.23 It requires that we distinguish between the pleasing and the disagreeable, on the

one hand, and good and evil, on the other.24 The second is an objective, moral evaluation

that is not dependent on the amount of pleasure something promises to give. Kant argues

20 Rather than facilitating activities at which children can succeed, then, it would be more conducive to positive self-esteem to have them practice doing good deeds. 21 § 83 of the third Critique shines some particularly helpful light on Kant’s meaning of the word happiness: happiness is a “mere idea” to which we attempt to make ourselves “ adequate under merely empirical conditions (which is impossible.” It is a deficient idea that is necessarily tied to the short-sightedness of passion/inclination and those things to which one is naturally/automatically directed. Even the term “true happiness” for Kant still involves the exclusion of moral reason. Why does Kant insist on defining happiness derogatorily? It seems as though it is merely a polemical device aimed at sharpening our attention to the sublimity of morality, as well as separating himself from other moral theories he deems flawed. 22 Morally worthy happiness may be a strange idea. What value is left for the fulfillment of inclination if one recognizes that the inclinations must be subordinate to morality? It seems that morally worthy happiness must assume some higher definition of happiness, not just the synthetic idea of happiness conditioned on prior moral goodness. Kant does consider the ways in which virtue is its own reward, and hence its own brand of happiness, as we shall see shortly. 23 It may seem strange that someone deserves to be happy, and Kant more properly means that if one happens to be happy, then one can feel good about it. Nevertheless, there is little difference between this and the idea that someone deserves to be happy. It may seem strange, but it is also empowering. 24 See Critique of Practical Reason, pp. 57-67.

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that it is easy to get caught up in seeking our own happiness, as it often seems that

“everything hinges on our happiness.”25 He agrees that we cannot fail to attend to our

happiness, but that it is morally necessary that we also judge as moral beings and make

moral worth the supreme condition of our happiness. This conditionality means three

things: 1) that we limit our practical maxims when they conflict with the moral law,

making it our meta-maxim to always follow the moral law above all others; 2) that we

cultivate morally worthy practical maxims as our indirect duties require; and 3) that we

judge happiness to be morally good only when we have also achieved moral worth. This

last meaning is the highest definition of self-esteem: we can and should be pleased with

ourselves only when we have achieved moral worth. Moral worth comes from having a

good will; a good will is one that is determined above all by the moral law.

Happiness and virtue are linked in the idea of the Highest Good, which is the

object of pure practical reason.26 Virtue is the condition of the worth of happiness, but if

we have virtue without happiness, our goodness is still incomplete. “The highest good of

a possible world” consists in “happiness distributed quite exactly in proportion to

morality”(CPrR 110). By “happiness” Kant means physical prosperity, not self-

satisfaction, and so he argues that the concepts of happiness and virtue are not

analytically connected. In other words, there is absolutely no guarantee that good things

will happen to good people. Kant faults the Ancients (the Epicureans and the Stoics) for

linking the concepts of goodness and happiness, believing either that goodness makes one

happy or that happiness is the good. Kant remarks that, unfortunately, neither is the case.

25 Ibid. 26 The Highest Good is the object of pure practical reason, but it is not the determining basis since pure practical reason must be determined by the form of the will alone, universality, and no object at all. This means that, when we have a good will, we do not act because we want to achieve self-esteem, but because we know that our action is the right thing to do, and self-esteem follows.

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In solving the antinomy occasioned by the necessity of a synthetic connection between

the two concepts, Kant argues that virtue cannot produce happiness in the world of sense,

but it can produce happiness in the noumenal, rational world whereby we are pleased by

our moral actions. Therefore, we see that, Kant describes the satisfaction that one

receives from moral behavior in a number of different ways. Not only does one feel

above the caprice of inclination and deserving of happiness, but moral behavior is, in a

more direct sense, its own reward.27 We experience joy in acting morally because, as

Beck puts it, “reason’s interest is being furthered.”28 It is difficult to explain the reason

that we feel good when doing good, even if doing so is extremely difficult for us, but

Kant holds that this is the case. If such is in fact the case, it would evince an underlying

unity between reason and sensibility that Kant rediscovers in the third Critique under the

name of aesthetic feeling and he, perhaps mistakenly, theorized in the first Critique, by

making the categories of the Understanding dependent on the forms of intuition (as we

discussed in chapter 3).

Instead of causing stubbornness and neurosis, moral cognitivism facilitates self-

esteem. In taking morality seriously, one is inspired to scrutinize oneself in order to better

perfect oneself and promote the happiness of others. Self-understanding, self-respect, and

self-satisfaction are, perhaps, general pre-requisites for emotional intelligence as they

stand in for general psychological well-being. Next we shall consider the ways that moral

theory informs our emotional experience more specifically.

27 Drawing an analogy with the Stoics, Beck calls this loftiness “equanimity”; Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 230. 28 Ibid., 229.

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II. Moral and Emotional Transparency; Moral and Emotional Universalism

Self-scrutiny implies some degree of self-transparency, and Kantian moral theory

places a great deal of emphasis on transparency, but this fact is often missed because

attention is diverted by the too fine of a point Kant puts on the injunction not to lie. The

notion of personal and political transparency is used to explain universalism: capable of

being seen and understood by all and capable of being acceptable to all are, in practice,

related since things are kept hidden oftentimes because they are, or are feared to be,

unacceptable. In the realm of emotion, pre-conscious ideas can be repressed either

because they are unacceptable or because they are not fully understood. In both cases,

making them conscious can help to promote the subject’s explicit goals and promote

psychological harmony. Our need to make our emotions conscience parallels and is

informed by the moral command to make sure that one’s intentions are publicizable.

As is well known, the first formulation of the categorical imperative states that

one must never act in such a way that one could not also will that the maxim of the action

be a universal law (G 402). Kant explains this maxim test both through the notion of

contradiction in willing (as with the refusal of charity example) and through the notion of

contradiction in conception (as with the lying example). He unites these two different

methods by identifying a universal law with a law of nature. Many of Kant’s critics have

tried to punch holes in the categorical imperative, arguing that it is too vacuous to track

morality’s requirements or that it cannot guide action at all. There are other means of

expressing Kant’s notion of universalism if this one is not successful.29 In the end, the

29 I agree that the many formulations of the categorical imperative are all intended to elaborate the same idea, but for the purposes of this section I focus on the first since it is most closely tied to Kant’s universalism. Nevertheless, we shall see that starting with any one articulation of the categorical imperative

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notion of universality is best treated generally, not as a fool-proof method of directing

specific actions, but as a general guide for moving from an amoral to a moral perspective.

Habermas explains universalism thusly: universalism holds that moral

justifications must be, in principle, acceptable to all rational beings.30 Habermas means to

exclude reasons that cannot, in principle, be acceptable to all rational beings because they

are based on something essentially particular to one person or group, such as faith or

other shared practices. A stronger reading of this notion of “acceptability” posits that all

rational beings would find the same thing acceptable, since they are all rational, and there

is presumably a most rational answer, if it can be found. Arendt interprets Kantian

universalism in the spirit of pluralism, arguing that universality is achieved by taking on

many different perspectives. Arendt’s formulation expresses Kant’s emphasis on the

importance of overcoming selfishness.31

Arendt draws a connection between the universal law formulation of the

categorical imperative and, what she calls the “transcendental principle of publicness”

from Perpetual Peace. Therein Kant states:

All actions relating to the right of other men are unjust if their maxim is not consistent with publicity … [for a] maxim which I cannot divulge publicly without defeating my own purpose must be kept secret if it is to succeed; and, if I cannot publicly avow it without inevitably exciting general opposition to my project… the opposition which can be foreseen a priori is due only to the injustice with which the maxim threatens everyone. (PP 129-130)

leads to the others and if we attempt to exclude the insights of the others, then the one becomes nonsensical. 30 Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 120. 31 Also see Robert Kane’s Through the Moral Maze for such an interpretation.

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Publicly communicating an unjust maxim would arouse opposition and would therefore

cause others to prevent the action. Kant believes that people have an innate sense of

justice. Arendt quotes from The Strife of the Faculties:

Why has a ruler never dared openly to declare that he recognizes absolutely no right of the people opposed to him? The reason is that such a public declaration would rouse all of his subjects against him; although, as docile sheep, led by a benevolent and sensible master, well-fed and powerfully protected, they would have nothing wanting in their welfare for which to lament. (SF 145)

Describing Kantian morality as the “coincidence of the private and the public,”

she goes on to demonstrate that Kant’s aesthetic philosophy also expresses this value of

publicity.32

Can we say that the “transcendental formula of public right” is a formulation of

the categorical imperative? We can preliminarily note that the mere fact that it is political

principle does not prevent it from also being a moral principle since true politics and

morality cannot be in conflict for Kant: “for true politics must bend the knee before right”

(PP 125). Kant calls the transcendental principle of publicness an ethical and juridical

principle,33 and the categorical imperative, as we see from the Metaphysics of Morals, is

also both an ethical and juridical principle.

Kant’s “deduction” of the transcendental principle of publicness (TPP) is

incredibly similar to his deduction of the first formulation of the categorical imperative:

he abstracts from all the material aspects of “public right” and is “left with the formal

attribute of publicness” (PP 125). Recall section One of the Groundwork, in which Kant

32 Arendt, Lectures, 49. 33 We have a moral duty to promote perpetual peace; yet this end is co-guaranteed by Nature or Providence. As with Kant’s regulatory notion of the afterlife offered in support of our moral duty to promote the Highest Good, he seeks to show the ways that progress towards Perpetual Peace is naturally attained in order to demonstrate to his reader that it is not a hopeless goal.

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begins with the formal idea of lawfulness as such in order to derive the moral idea of

lawfulness. There we have the mere idea of lawfulness and here we have the mere idea of

publicness. A law is essentially public, just as morality is essentially the government of

all people, or individuals as they are rational beings. The TPP seems closer to

Habermas’s description of universalism than to Kant’s first formulation of the categorical

imperative since one would keep something a secret because it is not, in principle,

acceptable to all rational beings, while, on an ungenerous reading of the universal law

formulation, we can universalize something that might not be explicitly acceptable to all

and vice versa. The TPP may be seen as more stringent than the universal law

formulation since it gives the capacity to dissent to others, and the universal law

formulation allows the individual actor to decide herself, in conducting a thought

experiment, on behalf of others. One would hope that the moral decision-maker would

decide in the same way that the other person would if the latter were given a chance to

speak for herself, but such is not necessarily the case, and so we might conclude that the

TPP formulation actually does a better job of respecting autonomy than the universal law

formulation of the categorical imperative because it requires real, not imagined consent.

Nevertheless, both require a transition from the judgment of acceptability made by one

person to the judgment of acceptability made by all.

The TPP does seem to express the same sentiment as the categorical imperative,

and it helps us to gain a more intuitive grasp of Kantian universalism. Universalism is

best understood as requiring impartiality and the overcoming of selfish motives. Arendt

argues that the “bad man,” for Kant, is the one who “makes an exception for himself.”34

34 Ibid, 17. Arendt does not consider that we might hold ourselves to a higher, not a lower, moral standard. In theory there would be nothing wrong with this, but, as we shall see with out discussion of the equation

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Universalism also implies an expanded perspective of one’s goals and motivations: they

must be evaluated not merely as they relate to oneself but as they relate to everyone.

To come to see one’s motivations from an expanded perspective is also the goal

one takes up in understanding and evaluating one’s emotional experience. Hence,

emotional intelligence involves something like emotional universalism. Both the process

of achieving moral universalism and the process of achieving emotional universalism, if

it can be called that, encourage us to take on other people’s points of view and to look at

ourselves from the outside in, as happens in many forms of therapy. Moral universalism

is itself a form of therapy: in striving for universalism we achieve a better understanding

of our standpoint, and, in some cases, overcome it.

Often emotions themselves harbor selfishness. Reflections on emotional

selfishness are, perhaps, necessarily personal and idiosyncratic. Emotions are not

specifically prone to selfishness because they are feelings and self-oriented (such an

assumption would involve a confusion between “selfish” and “self-regarding” or “self-

referential,” since we often have feelings about our emotions), but they may be

specifically prone to selfishness in that they are pre-reflective and, hence, selfishness may

be more easily able to sneak by in them under the radar of conscience. Emotions such as

angry resolve and vindictive bitterness, i.e., emotions that resolve to remain in the form

of emotion and actively resist change and the calming force of reflection, may be the

most likely vehicle for hidden selfishness. The reasons behind our emotions may be

between self-respect and other-respect, there is something psychologically dangerous about it. Holding ourselves to a higher standard may imply either that we think we are better than others or that we think we are worse than others and must pay a penance. It may also imply that we are afraid to engage in moral discourse, not wanting to share or attempt to discover the inner moral life; such is a fear of intimacy.

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repressed, as Averill suggests, for the very same reason that the despot will not announce

publicly that he holds his subjects in sheer contempt.

The phrase “emotional universalism” may be misleading because it sounds as

though it implies that everyone should have the same emotions. There is reason not to

adopt the term in the fact that Kant faults feeling for not being universal:

The capacity for having pleasure or displeasure in a representation is called feeling because both of them involve what is merely subjective in the relation of our representation and contain no relation at all to an object for possible cognition of it (or even cognition of our condition). While even sensations, apart from the quality they have (of, e.g., red, sweet, and so forth) because of the nature of the subject, are still referred to an object as elements in our cognition of it, pleasure and displeasure (in what is red or sweet) express nothing at all in the object but simply a relation to the subject.”35

Pleasure may not be a quality of a peach, just as respect is not a quality of the moral law,

but there is still an objective, law-like connection between some experiences and some

feelings or emotions. We might even say that a peach has the quality of being able to

cause a certain taste when paired with human taste buds. The fact that the feeling is “in

us” need not mean that it is disconnected from the object. (Kant, of all people, certainly

understand this.) Adam Smith argues that proper emotions are those that would be had by

a detached observer.36 This suggests that there is much that is common amongst

emotional responses (within a culture) and that these commonalities ought to be seen as

35 MM, 12. We might agree that emotions do not tell us anything about objects, but does that mean that they cannot be universal, or that they do not tell us anything about the “cognition of our condition.” It seems patently false that emotions and/or feelings do not tell us about ourselves and our nature. Therefore, we ought not interpret this clause in that way. Instead, it seems that by arguing that feelings cannot be connected to the “cognition of our condition” he means to contrast them to feelings that claim universality because they refer to the human condition, or cognition in general, such as aesthetic feeling. In the MM Kant also accepts that moral behavior yields moral feeling. Such a feeling should also claim universality, as the moral law is itself universal (see CJ, 125). 36 Theory of Moral Sentiments: I.1.5 and II.1.5

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normative. Nevertheless, Smith’s account is backwards: it is not the commonality that

grounds morality, but morality that grounds the affirmation of the commonality.

Focusing on the way in which emotions are subjective, private experiences also

runs the risk of thwarting the call to universalism. In the last chapter we saw Kant warn

against the desire to “play the spy upon one’s self,” which “is to reverse the natural order

of the cognitive powers.”37 We can imagine someone who is protective of her emotions,

someone who insists on her “right” to have them, since in the fact that she is having the

experience she cannot be mistaken. Of course, feelings are subjective experiences, just as

thoughts are, but feelings, just like empirical and cognitive experience, are imbued with

inter-subjective content and reference to objective states of affairs. In many ways, another

person may be able to understand our feelings better than we do or even can. For the most

part, emotions are natural reactions to certain perceptions and events. There are a vast

array of possible situations and events, but, for the most part, all people understand the

law-like connection between them and emotions. In most cases, the person having the

emotion is in the worst position to understand its causes, because emotions often involve

their simultaneous denial. “Emotional universalism,” then, would just refer to coming to

an understanding of the connections between one’s emotion and the universal laws that

connect it to its causes. This understanding entails making the emotion transparent and

grasping its cognitive content. If we have a “right to our feelings,” it is only in the sense

that we have a “right” to think freely, but all to often such a “right” is understood as a

license not to think at all.

Still, universalism, in the case of emotion, is predicated on comprehension, not

similarity. Emotions are not judged in a vacuum, but must be judged on their fit to the 37 Anthropology, §4.

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situation and by their intentions. The idea of emotional universalism should not imply

that we must ask ourselves how another person would feel in our situation and take on

that person’s imagined emotions instead of our own. A therapist should never

instructively remark: “I would feel such and such” or “you should feel such and such,”

even though he may suspect that the person does in fact feel such and such and refuses to

admit it. Instead, therapy is a process of making one’s thoughts and feelings public for

the purpose of gaining a more comprehensive, rational perspective on them. Again, the

more rational perspective is not necessarily transcendent: often the goal of therapy is to

better feel one’s emotions and to better serve their objectives or to resolve internal

contradictions and forces of repression. Emotional universalism, then, should be seen as

gaining greater perspective on one’s emotions, but not another person’s external

perspective, but a perspective others might have if they were in the same situation. In

other words, we should try to imagine, not a detached, but a very affected, spectator.

Differing perspectives may bring to light a number of things: ways that we are limiting

our experience of emotions, an understanding of the reasons that we have the emotions

that we do or of the unconscious purposes our emotional habits serve, facts or feelings

that our emotions imply, ideas in responding to our emotions, etc.

So far is it from needing to control the emotions with reason that we might even

say that it is the voice of the emotion that must be included in order to achieve

universalism. Simply making our emotions self-transparent, or public, as if we were to

explain them to someone, sets off the chain reaction of better understanding and

evaluation. One of the most important psychological aspects of the progression toward

emotional universalism is that, in taking on an external point of view, we are forced to

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articulate and face our emotions in the first place. Many emotions are too painful to

acknowledge. Acknowledging them makes us feel “needy,” childish, vulnerable,

defective, etc. Some people feel as though they are hurting someone else by having a

negative emotion. Acknowledging and accepting an emotion is often the most important

step.

Kant’s moral theory is often associated with the injunction not to lie, even for

“philanthropic” purposes. This aspect of Kantian moral theory is often seen as one of the

more extreme and less defensible propositions. Less often is it seen as a part of Kant’s

general emphasis on transparency, as by Arendt.38 Kant’s insistence on truthfulness needs

to be understood in the context of achieving self-knowledge and a transparent,

democratic political community. In his discussion of moral character in the

Anthropology, he argues that truthfulness is a necessary prerequisite to character:

Briefly, as the highest maxim, uninhibited internal truthfulness toward oneself, as well as in the behavior toward everyone else, is the only proof of a person’s consciousness of having character. (A 295)39

What does it mean to have “uninhibited internal truthfulness toward oneself”? This

sounds rather intense, not to mention naïve after we have accepted the insights of Freud.

Furthermore, Kant’s belief that we can never be fully aware of whether of not we have a

purely good will seems to suggest that total internal truthfulness is impossible.

38 Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. Ronald Beiner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). 39 It would be a mistake to conclude that Kant believes that we should share all of our thoughts with others. In the last paragraph of the Anthropology, Kant considers a hypothetical species in which there was no difference between thought and language. He concludes that humans could not live in peace under such conditions, “hence, it is part of the original composition of a human creature, and it belongs to the concept of the species, to explore the thoughts of others, but to conceal one’s own” (A 332). Kant suffers no shortage of tips for polite dinner party conversation that confirm this requirement that we limit the disclosure of thought. Nonetheless, in the Anthropology, Kant goes on to write that this natural tendency to conceal leads to lying and that we must, as rational beings, combat this consequence. Therefore, it seems that Kant leaves the distinction between polite concealment and lying up to the rational subject.

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Nevertheless, the duty of self-knowledge requires that we strive for it. If we can never

fully be aware of our intentions, then the effort to be truthful with oneself, or not to lie to

oneself, needs to be constant. We need not be paranoid, but it is simply the case that self-

lies undermine morality, which, for Kant, is based on rational self-understanding. An

intention of which we are unaware cannot be tested for its universality. Lying to oneself

is just as immoral as lying to others because, not only do we not consent to our behavior,

we are not fully responsible for it, because we have not completely chosen it.

Furthermore, lying to oneself threatens the possibility of communication just as lying to

others does. The goal of communication is community, and a community of rational

beings is achieved through rational transparency; no communion can be reached if that

which has been shared and understood is false.40 Self-transparency obviously helps in the

ability to analyze emotion: we cannot come to understand emotions and thoughts unless

we are first aware of them.

Critics of Kant may be aghast at this point, objecting that moral universalism and

emotional universalism are not correlates, but are mutually exclusive: moral universalism

requires that we overcome all particularity, which includes all emotion. This criticism is

based on a confusion about what it means to overcome particularity. Moral universalism

requires that our action be, in principle, acceptable to all rational people, not that all of

our actions become uniform. Similarly, emotional universalism does not mean that

everyone must have the same emotions, but rather that I check to see if my emotions

40 In taking up this Kantian idea, Habermas is often criticized for his naiveté, and I am opening myself up to this same set of criticisms. Of course, the goal of any given speech act can be a number of different things, especially the achievement of power over the other person, situation, or vis-à-vis the institution. I sympathize with Habermas and his political/psychological idealism, and I am here speaking normatively about our psychological/epistemological need for recognition on which other types of communication depend. Hopefully, I will be able to continue this topic and better defend these assertions in the future.

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would be judged acceptable by all rational/emotional beings. Nevertheless, it is necessary

to formulate the precise meaning of this “rational acceptability” in the case of emotion,

especially since emotional intelligence has been misunderstood, and taken to mean

rational repression.

Consider the following example of evaluating whether or not an emotion is

universalizable: Suppose the maxim of my action is to refuse to make time to visit and

comfort a grieving friend. The emotions at work here may be a sort of anxiety, guilt, or a

transferred arrogance and defensiveness about the importance of whatever it is I happen

to be doing instead. The goal of emotional transparency would be to understand the

maxim that occasions the emotions, and the goal of emotional universalism is to evaluate

it. This maxim is immoral because people need comfort in certain situations and my

refusal to provide it makes an exception of myself: I cannot deny that people sometimes

need comfort, nor that I will sometimes need it, but instead I want to opt out of being the

one who must provide it, hoping that someone else will do the work for me. My maxim

would necessarily be that everyone should provide comfort for grieving friends, except

for me. The right thing to do, then, is to comfort my grieving friend. In this case, I will

need to judge some of my emotions as defective, and I will need to judge some other

emotions, such as fear about facing sadness, and sadness itself, as important and requiring

expression and, in this case, behavioral therapy (the behavioral therapy involved in facing

one’s fears so as to become more comfortable in certain situations). In this situation

universalism is not blind to particularity: It does not matter that someone else, who is not

friends with my friend, does not have the duty to comfort him. What does matter is that

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anyone can see that I, being the particular person that I am and in the particular situation

that I am in, do have a duty to behave thusly in this situation.

Emotions can be very idiosyncratic, and a product of very particular facts about

oneself, such as the particular personalities of one’s parents. Therefore, there is reason to

think, at first blush, that universalism conflicts with emotionality. Nevertheless, concern

for oneself and idiosyncrasy are not inherently immoral; they are a problem only when

they trump moral concerns. In other words, when we gain a more universal perspective

on our principles and beliefs, we may decide not to overcome them or we might instead

be strengthened in them. Emotions are a feature of individual experience, it is true, but so

are beliefs, convictions, and principles. Universalism does not mean that all individual

experiences must be traded in for some kind of universal experience, whatever that could

possibly mean. Our particular experience must be evaluated from a universal perspective,

but the universal perspective remains a view of our very individual and particular life.

(This defense of Kantian impartiality will be re-addressed in the next chapter’s discussion

of formalism.)

Emotional universalism requires acceptance of the fact and demands of

emotionality, just as moral universalism requires acceptance of the fact and demands of

morality. There is an easy transition to be made from becoming more aware of one’s own

emotional needs and the moral requirement of respect: self-denial often takes a moral toll.

In other words, people often deny the needs of others because they deny their own needs;

they also deny harms caused to others because they deny harm caused to themselves.41 In

other words, recognizing our own emotions teaches us something about emotions

41 Adorno and Horkheimer discuss this parallel in Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1976).

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(although a proper theory of emotions also plays a role), and accepting our own

emotionality promotes a feeling of equality. We become more emotionally literate in

general and more comfortable with the fact that emotions are a part of humanity, as well

as more sensitive to them.

Moral sensitivity and emotional sensitivity, a component of emotional

intelligence, merge at this juncture: one simply cannot promote the happiness of others if

one cannot recognize emotional harm, and one cannot recognize emotional harm and

health in others if one is closed off to this part of herself. We do sometimes, of course,

help others in a more distanced way, by giving money, for example. We can imagine

someone who only helps others in this way: this person would have no close

relationships, since closeness necessarily entails emotional involvement. Although Kant

had many close friends, his own life may have tended in this direction, falling short of

virtue. We can see that having close, emotional relationships and sufficiently caring for

the people with whom one is involved is morally necessary, and even the best way to

direct the majority of one’s efforts in promoting the happiness of others. Kant’s argument

for the reciprocal need to promote the happiness of others shows us that we similarly

need to have and take care of close relationships since we all need them. Historically

much of the moral work of caring for the psychological and physical health of people has

fallen to women, but such an arrangement is not psychologically optimal and, in any

case, no longer sustainable in our culture. Instead of having the cultural collapse of close

relationships, all adults must take up the slack of providing the physical and

psychological care that we all need. In this way we can see that emotionality is a

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necessary dimension of universalizability, and a theory of emotional intelligence must be

a part of moral theory.

The duty to promote the happiness of others through caring emotionally is

intimately connected to the duty to perfect ourselves. Kant’s illustration of universality,

the Kingdom of Ends, posits a systematic unity of people who are treated both as means

and as ends, and emotional universalism teaches us that our emotions are often the

counterparts of other people’s emotions. When we are angry at someone, that person is

perhaps angry at us too. When we are hurt by someone, it is sometimes the case that that

person was previously hurt by something we did or that he or she is need of sympathy in

another respect. This realization does not in any way diminish the importance of our

personal emotional needs, but it helps us to see them as a part of a relationship and a

community of reciprocal caring. When we become aware of the ways that our emotions

are a part of relationships, we are forced to address other people’s emotions in order to

fully understand and address our own. The result of this expanded, relational perspective

is equality and shared respect. The same thing happens with moral judgments: in

achieving a universal perspective we come to see others as equal to us, and we come to

see harms as equally bad, no matter to whom they occur. In both cases, this expanded

viewpoint makes us more mature. In ceasing to demand special status for our moral

judgments, or for our emotions, we put ourselves in a position of equality with other

people. It is this mutual recognition that makes us citizens of a common state. We realize

that we are no more valuable, and, what is sometimes more important, yet related

psychologically, no less valuable.

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III. Overcoming Selfishness; Achieving Emotional Egalitarianism and Respect

As we have seen, universalism requires that we recognize the equality between

ourselves and others. The second formulation of the categorical imperative is better

known for expressing this sentiment: act so as to always treat people (rational beings) as

ends in themselves, never as merely a means (G 429). All of the formulations of the

categorical imperative are meant to express different facets of the same idea, and, we can

see that, overcoming selfishness plays as big of a role in respecting others and oneself as

it does in achieving universality. Respecting other people requires that we grant them a

right to govern themselves as much as we are able to govern oneself. Here more

explicitly we see the inter-relation of self- and other- respect. Furthermore, respecting

others requires that we engage them emotionally; in other words, it requires and is a part

of emotional intelligence.

The notion of selfishness plays a major role in Kant’s thought, an even bigger role

than it should because he often assumes that selfishness and hedonism are at the heart of

all immorality. We can follow Kant in recognizing the importance of overcoming

selfishness in the cultivation of morality as long as we do not let it hinder the pursuit of

self-respect, as Kant’s derogatory view of our “animal nature” sometimes seems to.

Selfishness is by definition immoral. Kant often uses the term “self-love” (Eigenliebe) as

a synonym for selfishness, and this is unfortunate. In our culture, “self-love” sounds more

like the antidote to “self-hate” and akin to self-respect, which is a moral duty, not a

temptation. Nevertheless, selfishness, for Kant, entails taking up the immoral maxim,

privileging inclination over the moral law. As we have seen, all self-worth and self-

respect are premised on respect for morality.

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To value the fulfillment of one’s inclinations over the moral law means that one is

willing to trample another person’s (or one’s own) dignity in order to fulfill a personal

goal. Disrespect might take the form of lying, coercion, or simply a failure to

communicate with another person and gain consent. Selfishness can be understood as

valuing one’s own goals too highly or as a failure to empathize and recognize the equal

worth of other people’s goals. Selfishness can also result from a lack of skill, that which

is informally referred to as “social skills.” Such skill is required for recognizing a person

as a person in the first place. Without this recognition it is possible to live in an

artificially de-populated moral world, caring about a few people perhaps, but ignoring

many others. When others do impinge on the consciousness, they are seen as obstacles,

not as people. Insensitivity to the demands of morality is then a kind of mental self-

centeredness.42

Paradoxically, the antidote to selfishness may be proper self-esteem since it is

often not the result of a puffed up sense of self, but of feelings of hurt and vulnerability

that makes us justify selfishness as a fulfillment of the need for self-protection. As with

the previous reflection on false notions of self-esteem, these thoughts may contribute to a

moral psychology of evil.43 Indeed, a good part of the development of emotional

intelligence may involve hammering out the difference between self respect and

selfishness. Attempting to understand one’s emotions at all may strike some as selfish

because it requires the devotion of time and attention to oneself. Nevertheless, this kind

of self-centeredness is required by the duty to perfect oneself. Others may think that the

fact that we have a privileged relationship to ourselves—because we have the

42 See MM 6:450, §26. 43 See Gressis, op. cit.

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aforementioned duty to ourselves and not to others—means that Kantian universalism is

flawed. Kant nowhere insinuates that having a privileged location, being one self and not

another, is problematic. Kant does think that we have a tendency to take our self-

favoritism to an immoral length, but this does not mean that the mere fact that we have a

different relationship to ourselves than we do to others is problematic. Indeed, it is the

choice and responsibility that is enable by the first person perspective that makes

morality possible. To know oneself and to be aware of one’s own special needs does not

constitute selfishness. Again, it is all too often the case that not being able to recognize

and vocalize her opinions, preferences, and needs causes a person to feel threatened by

and shut out the opinions, preferences, and needs of others or to blame other people for

the fact that she has failed to respect herself. In such a case, respecting others is clearly

not even a possibility, even though the person might act very giving, even self-

abnegating.

Kant’s distinction between promoting the happiness of others and promoting the

perfection of others offers an interesting parallel here. We might be working very hard

for others—indeed, devoting our entire lives to them—and still be failing to respect them.

Kant argues that we have a duty to promote the welfare of others and a negative duty to

promote their moral well-being. In other words, we must refrain from corrupting people

but need not be their moral teachers:

For the perfection of another human being, as a person, consists just in this: that he himself is able to set his end in accordance with his own concepts of duty; and it is self-contradictory to require that I do (make it my duty to do) something that only the other himself can do”(MM 6:386).

In other words, it is practically impossible to promote the perfection of another person.

Virtue is a function of moral awareness and individual choice. You might think that you

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are promoting his perfection, as a parent might force a child to apologize to someone, but

perfection is a function of the free will, and so such a parent is only precluding the

possibility of virtue in this case (if the child is old enough to be virtuous). At this point,

we might think that it is very strange for Kant to make such a distinction: if we cannot

possibly promote another person’s virtue, then why should we worry about overstepping

our boundaries? Is Kant himself going too far in writing about moral theory and giving

lectures on ethics? As long as people are free to make their own decisions, giving rational

arguments to sway them, should not be construed as over-stepping the boundaries of

respect. The point is: What do we need to do in order to make sure that others are free to

make their own decisions?44 The answer is: respect, and the psychological pre-requisite

for this is self-respect. When we are sure about our individual worth and have are aware

that we have tried and will continue to try to do that which we perceive to be the best

thing, the thing that we have critically determined and continue to examine, then we do

not need others to agree with us in order to prop up our convictions.45 Of course,

everyone longs for the perpetual peace of the whole world agreeing with them, but we

know that the only taste we will get of this is in the cemetery.

Nevertheless, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that the duty to respect

others amounts to a duty to leave them alone. The idea that all people have an inviolable

44 Up to a certain point, since we obviously would not let someone freely choose to kill another person if we could prevent them. 45 The question of how far to go in trying to affect people’s decision-making is one of primary importance for the cultivation of intellectual virtue, treating people as rational beings, and promoting the happiness of others. In striving to navigate the path between the paternalism of trying too hard to sway someone and the patronization of silently judging someone else’s reasoning to be flawed, we must take into consideration our relationship to the person and the role that we tend to play in it. Bowen family systems theory teaches us that we might be continually “overfunctioning” or “underfunctioning” in our reasoning capacity vis-à-vis another person. In many ways, the task of negotiating the need to respect our own reasoning and the need to respect another person’s reasoning, while being in communication with each other through weathering conflicts, is the primary struggle involved in forging and maintaining relationships.

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value is most commonly interpreted as yielding a theory of rights, less often is it analyzed

in terms of the requirement to respect another person him or herself. Still, the “Doctrine

of Virtue” takes the second formulation of the categorical imperative as its principle;

there we see that the second formulation has positive implications for action. On the other

hand, the first half of the Metaphyics of Morals, the “Doctrine of Right” is not based on

the idea of respect, but the idea of universality. Interpersonal respect is an extremely

difficult notion to hash out, especially because different relationships call for different

forms of respect. Nevertheless, Kant goes a considerable distance in helping us

comprehend what is morally required of us and a morally informed theory of emotional

intelligence should take us even further.

Treating people as equals, and overcoming selfishness, is a necessary prerequisite

for respect. Kant sees respect as a keeping of one’s distance, not literally, but in the sense

of remembering that someone else is different and separate from oneself. It is contrasted

with love, the feeling that one is united with another, even though respect is also

necessary for love.46 Kant argues that lack of respect takes the forms of arrogance,

defamation, and ridicule.47 Even though Kant makes a strict distinction between moral

rationality and pragmatic rationality, assigning moral worth only to the former, he

believes that we must respect human rationality in general and the human ability to

rationally direct one’s personal conduct. The moral requirement to respect the free choice

of others has been called “the priority of the right over the good” in Kant’s ethics,

meaning that it is more important to accord individuals with rights than it is to dictate the

fulfillment of some notion of goodness. As recent interpreters have argued, this is an

46 See MM, §46, 6:469-470. 47 MM, 6:465.

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overstatement, but the truth in this reading is that Kant cautions self-criticism and

egalitarianism.

Still, moral egalitarianism requires the we engage in moral inquiry, not just

privately, but publicly, respecting the innate ability of all people to be rational. Kantian

moral theory assigns significant moral importance to the equal ability of all people to be

moral, and it is not good enough simply to leave others alone in order to treat people as

ends in themselves.48 One must not simply refrain from coercing others while seeking

one’s own goals, but one must work towards creating a moral community, a Kingdom of

Ends, or cosmopolis, wherein everyone’s necessary ends are fulfilled. It is important to

consider the ways that promoting the happiness of others and respecting others are two

sides of the same coin: we cannot promote the happiness of others without doing so

respectfully, and we cannot respect others without also taking their ends as our own.

The second and third formulations of the categorical imperative establish positive

moral ideals that are meant to guide relationships. These ideals are often simplified into

negative constraints, but in order to be moral we must also engage in the moral inquiry of

discovering how to respect rational nature, not just in ourselves, but in all people. Respect

is not a given: we are not born knowing how to respect ourselves and others: we discover

the needs that are universal as well as idiosyncratic. Along with the positive ends of

promoting our own perfection and the happiness of others, the Kingdom of Ends

formulation of the categorical imperative, contrary to the way that it is normally

interpreted, lays bare the fact that communities are interrelated wholes. The idea that we

might all pursue our own goals independently and respect others by leaving them alone

48 This rights-based way of thinking about moral respect also has the consequence of making caring relationships (and the “private sphere”) amoral.

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betrays a very psychologically and morally bankrupt notion of humanity. Of course, we

often get caught up in pursuing fame or wealth (although even those goals do not allow

for leaving others alone, although they most obviously involve using others as means),

but cultivating virtue requires that we take morality seriously, improving ourselves,

helping others, and promoting good relationships.

A community of rational beings requires intellectual communication, which

requires the ability to negotiate disagreement. Respecting people’s rational ability to

make their own decisions cannot mean that we ignore their rational decision-making

processes, treating rationality as though it were fundamentally private.49 Kant argues that

the duty to respect the humanity of every person entails

…a duty to respect a human being even in the logical use of his reason, a duty not to censure his errors by calling them absurdities, poor judgment and so forth, but rather to suppose that his judgment must yet contain some truth and to seek this out, uncovering at the same time the deceptive illusion … The same thing applies to the censure of vice, which must never break out into complete contempt and denial of any moral worth to a vicious human being; for on this supposition he could never be improved, and this is not consistent with the idea of a human being, who as such (as a moral being) can never lose entirely his predisposition to the good. (MM, 6:463-464.)

This is great advice for teachers, friends, lovers, parents, and political pundits: when you

think that someone else it wrong, do not jump to character assassinations; try to figure out

where they are coming from. As easy as this sounds, the psychological reality of

engaging our intellectual opponents is intellectually and emotionally challenging, even

exhausting. Nevertheless, accepting this challenge builds emotional intelligence, as some

psychologists believe that emotional intelligence is itself akin to coping with stress and

49 See Habermas’s argument for the priority of dialogical over monadological reason.

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negotiating conflict.50 Emotional intelligence is a component of rational discussion and

moral discourse itself. Rational discussion does not mean that the emotions are excluded

from the discussion. On the contrary, it means that the emotions are included and

discussed in a healthy and enlightening way. Emotional egalitarianism dovetails with

moral egalitarianism in the sense that both require an openness to the emotions of others.

Such is the highest form of emotional intelligence: who could possibly project emotional

health and intelligence more than someone who can speak respectfully and intimately

with her intellectual opponents without becoming unnecessarily upset or causing offense?

Such a person seems like a moral and psychological hero. Conflict is a crucible of both

virtue and emotional intelligence, and, in this case, virtue and emotional intelligence

seem to be the same thing.

IV. Pure Practical Reason: The Integration of Emotion and Reason

As we have seen, Kantian moral theory encourages self-scrutiny, which is the

basis of self-esteem, emotional universalism, and openness to the emotions of others.

Kant’s notion of practical reason also includes the idea that scrutinizing one’s

motivations better creates a harmoniously integrated self, one in which one’s conscious

motivations and one’s unconscious motivations and preconscious thoughts match up. In

this way, virtue causes or occasions emotional intelligence. A cognitivist moral theory,

like Kant’s, requires that morality be based on reasons; a cognitive theory of emotion

holds that emotions are grounded in reasons. When we put the two together, as they are in

Kant’s philosophy, we see that morality requires that we uncover the reasons implicit in

50 See Zeidner, Matthew, and Roberts, What We Know About Emotional Intelligence (2006); and J. Ciarrochi and J. Mayer, eds., Applying Emotional Intelligence (2007).

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our emotions and morally evaluate them. Furthermore, moral cognition, or thinking about

the content of the good, is naturally linked to emotional cognition, since emotions are

essentially evaluative. This joint emotional-rational cognition and evaluation creates a

more harmoniously unified self, the result of which is, again, self-satisfaction as well as

psychological ease.51

For Kant, morality requires that we fulfill our moral duties, but in order to be

moral, we must fulfill them not begrudgingly or accidentally, but because we actually

want to, because we respect and value the demands of morality and value morality itself

and want to do the right thing. Many of us will admit that we often find ourselves

conforming to moral requirements because those requirements happen to be easy or

beneficial at a particular time. Although we likely pat ourselves on the back anyway, this

is not the expression of a genuinely good will. Virtue must instead be the achievement

and expression of reflective reason. This requirement for reflection extends to emotional

experience.

Many moral theorists believe that Kantian moral theory entails that reason and

emotion be pitted in opposition to each other when it comes to morality. It is definitely

the case that with the term “inclination” (Neigung) Kant is usually thinking about a

selfish inclination, and hence something opposed to morality. As we saw in the previous

chapter, the term emotion (Affect) has a negative connotation for Kant, as does passion

(Leidung). When Kant talks about emotions he assumes that they are pre-reflective, much

less the product of rational reflection, as the feeling (Gefühl) of self-esteem is.

51 Calhoun discusses possible conflicts between intellectual and experiential beliefs in her “Cognitive Emotions?” My discussion here about knowing oneself and acting consistently parallels her discussion about working towards aligning experiential beliefs with intellectual beliefs, thereby overcoming emotion-belief conflicts.

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Nevertheless, when emotions have been reflected on or are the product of rationality,

they are praiseworthy. Kantian cognitivism calls for reflection and the production of

rational emotions. Moral deliberation requires that we reflect on our moral feelings to

discover and evaluate the reasons that are at their base. There is no reason to think that

emotional reasons are more likely to be immoral or irrational than our more explicit

inclinations. In fact, if the moral sense theorists are right, uncovering the reasons beneath

our emotions, and more effectively acting on them, would help us to be better people.

In order to fully illustrate the role that moral reasoning plays in harmonizing

inclination and emotion with reason, we can contrast cognitivism with a moral theory

that, to my knowledge, no one espouses, but many behaviors reflect, that we can call

“affectivism” or “inclinationism.” Most often people base their moral decisions on their

moods or on convenience. For example, I personally believe that I should offer people

without means of transportation, e.g., hitchhikers and poor people, a ride in my car,

provided I do not believe that doing so will endanger me. Although, I have fairly well-

developed reasons for this conviction, I hardly ever act on it. My actions in this case,

either to offer a ride or not to offer a ride, are usually based on mood and inclination. To

be fair, I have reasons for my failures in every case, e.g., I think that my husband might

disapprove, I do not want to interact with a stranger, I want to do something else instead

and without delay, etc… Still, I do not honestly believe that any of these feelings or

reasons outweigh the importance of helping others. When I do give a needy person a ride,

it is because my affects support that outcome, e.g., I am feeling particularly leisurely

because it is a sunny day and I am not in a rush, or I am feeling particularly loving and

confident because some of the circumstances in my life support this mood. Hence my

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moral decision, in this case, is based on my mood, not on my considered moral

convictions.

(This example sheds light on the interpretive debate concerning Kant’s examples

of acting out of duty as opposed to acting in conformity with duty. Many who defend

Kant argue that, with his example of the person continuing his life against all inclination,

Kant only means to say that it is in the cases where duty and inclination conflict that we

can be sure that we are acting from duty. When they are not in conflict, we might still be

acting from duty, it is just difficult to tell. My example suggests that it is likely the case

that when inclination and duty coincide we are acting out of duty less often than we

would like to think.)

It may seem that someone who unapologetically embraces affectivism is more “in

touch” with her emotions. My argument is the opposite: that if I were in fact to act on

principle more often, or all the time, my behavior would be more emotionally intelligent.

I implicitly value my cognitive (and moral) reasons more than my affective (or amoral or,

in some cases, immoral) reasons for acting. I feel that the cognitive reasons better

represent my ideal (or true) self and that affective causes merely represent a fleeting

whim and a failure to live up to my ideal. When I act on principle, I am pleased with

myself, and I perceive my failure to so act as a personal flaw, such as cowardice.52

A cognitivist moral theory promotes emotional intelligence by encouraging us to

formulate and reevaluate our intellectual principles. Inclinations, even though Kant

52 Of course, it is possible that I have merely held this moral ideal unthinkingly for quite some time and that it is not really well thought-out and does not really include all of the considerations I would like it to include. In that case, I should test my belief by evaluating the reasons that I have for it. Even if my principles are wrong, acting on them helps me to evaluate them. Perhaps, in perpetually offering rides to people, I begin to feel taken advantage of. I therefore begin to doubt whether or not it is good to be charitable in this way all the time, and perhaps I decide to qualify, and thereby alter, the principle.

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defines them as habituated desires (which is close to the definition of passion, as we saw

in chapter 3), are often more mutable than our more considered principles. When we act

on these unstable inclination, we do not learn anything about ourselves, or, rather,

anything about our beliefs. We may discover that we are much more likely to listen to an

upset friend after we have had a cup of coffee in the morning, but we cannot discover if

we should have the coffee in the future, if listening to the friend is something good to do.

We may discover that we like pleasing people by giving them compliments, but without

an understanding of the principle, or moral reasoning, behind this action, we cannot test

whether or not this pleasure is something we value, something we should strive for, and if

it is better or worse than any other kind of pleasure. On the other hand, when we assert a

conviction and act on it, we are then in a position to learn from our action. If we do not

feel like following through, we can scrutinize this feeling. Is it because we are having

trouble seeing ourselves as strong and happy? Or is it because we have some real

misgivings about the act that might cause us to revise our principles? Either way, we

learn about ourselves and are pushed to improve.

Taking morality seriously is, in a sense then, taking ourselves seriously.

Emotional intelligence appears to require that we act with conviction, which is a part of

having a strengthened sense of self. We can see this in the fact that the failures to know

what one wants and to act on this knowledge are related to co-dependent relationships

and general malaise. The ability to make choices and stand by those choices, because we

believe them to be better than the opposite, is a large part of the ability to engage in

emotional commitments, respecting ourselves and others. These commitments are

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necessary for and expressions of psychological health but are also themselves, in turn,

often morally required.

The Aristotelian picture of virtue paints it as something that should become habit.

Kant rejects this description of virtue because he believes that virtue always requires

reason. Virtue is not something that we can achieve once and for all; our principles must

be “continually purified” (MM, 6:383). Virtue is “always in progress and yet always

starts from the beginning” (MM, 6:409). Since Kant describes inclination as habituated

desire, basing virtue on habit is akin to basing it on inclination, for Kant, which is

practically a contradiction.53 Of course, Kant does not believe that we must only act

begrudgingly in order for our actions to count as virtuous. Critics of Kant object that he

describes mere continence not virtue, but Kant’s statement that virtue requires constant

thought, or practical reason, does not mean that he believes that virtuous actions will

always be difficult for the virtuous person.54

Kant’s rejection of virtue as habit demonstrates the importance he places on

rational reflection for virtue. To make virtue unthinking, or automatic, is to rob it both of

its integrative function and of the merit of rational comprehension of the moral law.

Making virtue based on habit is like leaving it to the immediacy of sympathy, or another

“moral sense,” as moral sense theory does, leaving it in the untrustworthy sphere of

53 See MM, 6:212. 54 For the articulation of this criticism, see Annas, The Morality of Happiness, 53. As Baron notes, in English, both the words “duty” and “obligation” carry a negative connotation. Baron speculates that for many Americans the term duty is associated with military duty. Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology, 16. It is hard to imagine a use of the word “duty” that is associated with something we actually want to do. Kant is well-known for contrasting duty and inclination, and it is this contrast that calls into suspicion his insistence that the notion of duty must be at the heart of moral theory. As Paton points out, “in the very idea of duty there is the thought of desires and inclinations to be overcome.” (Paton, The Categorical Imperative, 46.) Kant’s definition of virtue similarly implies this kind of internal conflict. Yet, Auxter points out that the German Verbindlichkeit (obligation), carries a more positive sense of boundedness, as “moral … activity is the basis for the tie we feel with others.” Auxter, Kant’s Moral Teleology, 163-164.

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impulse. The pursuit of self-perfection involves the cultivation of the powers of the

understanding and will “so as to satisfy the requirement of duty”:

A human being has a duty to carry the cultivation of his will up to the purest virtuous disposition, in which the law become also the incentive to his actions that conform with duty and he obeys the law from duty. (MM 6:387.)

In short, the very ideas of the good will and of virtue imply that one wants to be good.

Does Kant believe that, even though we want to be good, it will always be difficult

because we will always harbor selfish inclinations?55 Although Kant’s language

sometimes seems to suggest this, there is no real reason to believe that it is true. Our

discussion of the original predisposition to good and evil in human nature in chapter 6

should dispel this idea. Still, virtue, as an expression of the good will, is essentially a

project of reason, and the idea that we might one day fully achieve virtue and not have to

think about it any more is, again, a suspicious wish.56

Virtue is a process of continual rational analysis and decision-making. Pure

reason is necessary for grasping the moral law, but, because they are wide duties, duties

of virtue must admit empirical information. Nevertheless, there is no reason to understand

the word “rational” to mean without emotion. Reasons can be emotionally charged, just

as emotions presuppose reasons. We must think with emotion, about emotion, through

emotions, and let our emotions have a say in reason. Any thing less than this is irrational.

Just as it is obvious that we will always have emotions that we need to experience and

55 Many defenders of Kantian ethics argue that moral goodness need not, and indeed should not, be a conflict between reason and desire, because a truly good person will achieve a kind of total discipline in which desires no longer conflict with morality (See Paton, The Categorical Imperative, 46). I think that there is also merit in not overlooking Kant’s language of struggle. 56 This wish is then easily retro-projected onto Ancient Greece, with its supposedly pre-reflective version of virtue, as a kind of paradise lost. It is, of course, ironic that we have the Germans to thank for this variety of myth making. See George S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

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think through, Kant is convinced that we will always have inclinations that practical

reason will need to evaluate and adjust. Kant portrays this process as one of struggle, but

we will not see this as offensive, if we keep in mind that it is often in fact the case that

confronting one’s selfish tendencies or resistance to acknowledging certain emotions is,

in fact, a struggle. It is necessary to recognize the emotional reactions and difficulties that

are an intimate part of the human condition. Of course, our inclinations are not always

selfish, as Kant would sometimes have us think, and our emotions are, of course, not

always based on flawed thinking, but still inclinations and emotions need to be evaluated

and integrated with conscious reason and conscience. Without this integration, our

emotions are blind and our cognition empty, or, at least, deficient.

Allison discusses a sense in which the work of practical reason is psychologically

integrating: he likens practical reason’s ability to unify inclinations under a maxim to

speculative reason’s transcendental unity of apperception which unifies all experiences

under one consciousness (the “I think”).57 Practical reason decides which inclinations it

will take as motivating forces (see the discussion in chapter 6 of the “Incorporation

Thesis”). As Sullivan describes it:

To allow oneself to be ruled by freedom-destroying inclinations is the essence of vice. Pure practical reason thereby requires that we test our maxims to make sure that they are permissible. Freedom requires us to bring all our capacities and inclinations under the rule of reason, but to do so calmly so as not to rely unwittingly on inclinations for motivation.58

Nevertheless, there is a difference between mere psychological coherence and moral

rectitude. Many recent moral theorists argue that immorality is the same as psychological

57 Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 40. 58 Roger Sullivan, Introduction to Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

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incoherence: for example, Velleman makes such an argument.59 Gewirth argues that to

deny others the right to freedom and well-being is to deny our own such rights and hence

ultimately threatening to the self.60 The idea of squaring reason and inclination is

common in moral theory, as is the idea that morality and psychological health are related.

Working in the Kantian tradition, some theorists interested in the notion of

autonomy have developed it into the more robust idea of reflectively endorsing one’s

volitions, in the sense of discovering and acting on one’s “true” desires. Frankfurt has an

“authenticity” interpretation of autonomy, holding that autonomy requires that one’s

second-order desires identify with one’s first-order desires.61 Wolf characterizes

Frankfurt’s theory of freedom as a “Real Self Theory” because he believes, along the

same lines as Kant’s notion of autonomy, that an action is free if it issues from the true

self.62 The self of pure reason is our most true self, for Kant, but for Frankfurt the true

self is more immanent to our desires. We may or may not identify with our desires, but

those desires that best express the self are those with which we are most involved, to the

point of having, what he calls “volitional necessity.”63

Both the means of and motivation for these types of arguments are strange to me.

A fuller discussion of Kantian autonomy will follow in chapter 6, wherein we will see

that this tendency to break Kant’s equation between autonomy, pure reason, and the

categorical imperative is common. Whether or not these attempts to prove that self-

coherence and moral worth are the same thing are successful, they overlook the necessary

59 Vellman (1989), 306. 60 Gewirth (1991), 74. 61 Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” in The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 62 Susan Wolf, Freedom within Reason (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 63 Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About, 86.

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content of moral reasoning, i.e., the categorical imperative. At the level of morality,

reason unifies inclination according to the thought of pure lawfulness, or universality.

Virtue also requires that we adopt virtuous maxims, viz., to perfect ourselves and

promote the happiness of others. Morality, therefore, requires a higher level of reflection.

Not only do we consciously decide what we are going to do, as Allison suggests, but we

question whether or not it is really the right thing to do. Moral deliberation requires that

we reflect on our emotions, discover their cognitive bases, and then try to square those

cognitions with comprehension of the moral law, and process of moral deliberation has

the effect of promoting psychological health.

It is true that desires and emotions often contain or accompany self-referential

evaluations, but it seems mistaken to suggest that goals are important because we care

about them. They are important to us because we care about them, but that conclusion is

tautological and we need to ask the question “should this be important to me?” Herman

argues that we ought to be critical of our desires and ends, especially in our intimate

relationships, but we should not think that moral deliberation must take us away from

these ends. Instead, it is a part of them, and enhances them.64 On the other hand,

sympathy and caring can sometimes be false moral impulses: we also need to evaluate

our emotions with an eye to their effectiveness in promoting good outcomes.65 In some

ways, as Solomon polemically argues, emotions are acts, and as such, they themselves

should be morally evaluated. Our feelings about our emotions (or higher-level beliefs) are

a good place to start when seeking to evaluate our emotions, but moral evaluation must

64 Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment, 197-198. 65 See Diane M. Williamson, “Familial Duties and Emotional Intelligence: A New Foundation for Theory and Practice,” in Family Ethics, ed. Stephen Scales, Linda Oravecz, and Adam Potthast (forthcoming).

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go farther. It is sometimes necessary to bring in transcendent standards, e.g., universality

and respect, in order to more fully scrutinize and evaluate ourselves.

Someone might object that in refusing certain inclinations, we are not unifying

inclination and reason at all, but repressing one, yielding nothing but internal strife.

Someone might also object that what I am describing is not really a moral phenomenon,

but simply the product of conscious reflection, and Frankfurt’s notion of second-order

identification is a kinder and gentler, as well as more truly integrating account of the

integration of reason and emotion. The retort to both of these suspicions is linked to this

conviction that consciousness of duty, or compulsion under the moral law, is a “fact of

reason” and that morality is a natural human calling. Kant calls the moral law a “fact of

reason.” In other words, we are conscious of moral constraint.66 At the most foundational

level of his argument Kant appeals to common sentiment.67 People do, in fact, feel the

authority of morality (a psychological examination of the problems associated with

denying one’s moral feelings demonstrates this). We might amorally reflect on our

emotions and integrate them with pragmatic reason, but there is no guarantee that we will

feel any real identity to this integrated consciousness. On the other hand, there is a sense

in which Kant’s notion of duty promises to uncover our true selves. The “purity” of moral

reason refers not merely to the exclusion of empirical determination, but also to its

superlativeness.68 Our moral/rational consciousness is also the truth of our emotions.

While we cannot simply assume that our inclinations gracefully bow out as soon as we

66 Baier argues that to recognize a reason as a moral reason and yet not act on it is to act irrationally. Baier (1978), 249. 67 Although Kant does try to justify the possible purity of practical reason by arguing that the solution to the third Antinomy relies on it See Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 170-175. 68 O’Neill argues that all reason, speculative and practical, is subordinate to moral reasoning. Onora O’Neill, Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

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choose not to follow them, there is no reason to think that they are insensitive to reason or

essentially stubborn and fixed.69

We need not think of the struggle between reason and inclination as a violent one.

Just as one meaning of discipline implies force and punishment, there are also other

means of discipline that are loving. When we talk of disciplining children we often think

of spanking—perhaps this the reason so many parents are afraid to discipline—but

instead of beating down our inclinations we might just as easily talk of helping them

ascend to the level of principle through reason. Munzel argues that, since Kant believes

that we have a natural consciousness of our moral capacity and that his theory of human

nature shows that it is responsive to moral direction; it does not need to be dominated.70

Indeed, Kant discusses reason much more frequently than he discusses struggle, and yet it

is often easy for us to overlook the normal means by which reason relates to inclination,

namely by reasoning. Instead, the notion of discipline that most of us tend to have in

mind is decidedly irrational.

In the “Critique of Teleological Judgment,” when referring to man as the ultimate

purpose of nature, Kant discusses discipline first as the ability to deny oneself, “the

liberation of the will from the despotism of desire” and then as the ability critically reflect

on one’s connection to the pursuit of pleasure:

[W]e allow ourselves to be fettered by the impulses that nature gave us only as guides so that we would not neglect or even injure our animal characteristics; whereas in fact we are free enough to tighten or to slacken them, to lengthen or to shorten them, as the purposes of reason require. (CJ §83)

69 Nevertheless, admitting that the emotions are not irrational means that they too must play a role in moral deliberation, although not as blind intuitions, but as the markers of well-reflected reasons. We might liken this kind of back and forth characteristic of moral deliberation to Rawls’s notion of the reflective equilibrium between moral theory and experience. 70 Felicitas G. Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 305.

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Next Kant discusses the disciplines of art and science for their role in initiating man into

the realm of his higher purpose. In true Aristotelian fashion, Kant then argues that the

final purpose of existence “is a purpose that requires no other purpose as a condition of

its possibility”(CJ §84). Making use of his notion of purity, which will be further

discussed in the next chapter, Kant implies that moral “unconditioned legislation

regarding purposes” constitutes the purpose without a purpose or the unconditioned

condition. Although discipline is at first defined only negatively, in the end it looks to

moral ends to give it content and inform whether or not we must “tighten or slacken” our

pursuit of pleasure.

Grounding morality in a fact of reason has important consequences for our

discussion of emotional intelligence: it entails that the moral law will always be that

principle to which we subjectively give the most credence, and if it turns out that we are

following false moral principles, our confusion should be reflected in a lack of

endorsement by our own internal moral sense. Kantian moral theory offers us guidance,

but it cannot think or feel for us. Instead, it acknowledges the real, subjective moral

situation in which we find ourselves.71 Kant’s notion of conscience should not be

understood as an immediately transparent internal knowledge, but, again, something that

requires self-scrutiny and moral deliberation.

The previous section, and this chapter overall, helps us to see that we should not

always understand moral psychology in opposition to moral theory, as though one is

71 Moral theory often errs in transcending this reality, which is also an exigency. In taking over the question of “what should be done?” from the subject, it removes itself from the feeling that something needs to be done. Allowing itself to get lost in theoretical debate, it forgets that moral consciousness is not only conative, but also a consciousness of compulsion.

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empirical and the other is normative. The notion of emotional intelligence shows us that

psychology relies on normativity, and moral behavior must itself be understood

psychologically. Along these same lines, one might notice in this chapter a lack of

discussion about specific moral dictates prescribed by the categorical imperative and

consider it strange, since it is thought that moral theory is supposed to tell us what to do.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the common criticism that the categorical imperative cannot

truly guide action is not a criticism at all, but one of the merits of Kantian moral theory. I

do think that the categorical imperative is sufficient as a principle for guiding reflection;

nevertheless, guiding reflection should not be misunderstood a prescribing action.72 Kant

makes this clear in a number of places, most notably with his inclusion of “casuistical

questions” in the “Doctrine of Virtue” that conspicuously leave out the answers. By

making morality a function of reason, Kant ensures that moral reasoners will always feel

the responsibility to think for themselves and will not accept the conclusions of others

second-hand or be side-tracked from moral action by moral theory.

In the beginning of this chapter I stated that I agree with the contention of moral

cognitivism that there really are moral truths. Even the reader who thinks of herself as

taking morality seriously may wince at the thought that people will inevitably disagree on

moral matters and these conflicts are only worsened by stubbornness. Moral cognitivism

must maintain space for people to admit that they are wrong and learn from their

mistakes. I have perhaps strayed from the spirit of Kantianism by suggesting that one’s

moral principles are and should be open to revision. Kant never suggests that one can be

mistaken in her consciousness of the moral law, and he follows the traditional

72 See John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 148-149.

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interpretation of conscience, viz., that it is right. This is where I part company with Kant.

Nevertheless, after our long discussion of self-struggle and self-scrutiny, we cannot see

this as a serious disagreement. If we agree that there is a moral law, the addendum that

we must continually work to find it might be considered minor. It is likely that my

approach is related to my conviction that the emotions and reason are more enmeshed and

his is related to his assumption that they are the product of different faculties: if emotion

and reason are merely different modes of that which is essentially the same

consciousness, reason cannot be viewed as a pure and unchanging grasp of lawfulness. In

order to achieve universalism, we must take on another person’s, or many other people’s,

perspectives, using the same reason that may have been clouded in the first place. In

theory, universalism yields the most rational and correct viewpoint. In practice, the goal

of truth is reached only circuitously, if at all, but this does not tarnish the goal itself.

In the Anthopology, Kant gives three guidelines for achieving wisdom: “1) Think

for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the

other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self” (A §43). He

reiterates these rules a while later and phrases the third one thusly: “Always think in

harmony with your own self”(A §59). Here we have a nice summary of the points that

have been covered in this chapter: scrutinizing oneself is akin to thinking independently,

albeit in a way that is directed toward oneself; universalizing one’s emotions and maxims

involves putting oneself in the place of the other person, or, more generally, scrutinizing

oneself further requires thinking in communication with other people; lastly, practical

reason involves thinking in harmony with oneself.

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Although the emphasis in Kant’s philosophy and within Kant scholarship on

principle and consistency may sometimes overshadow the importance of constantly

striving toward moral ideals, this chapter has hopefully painted a picture of practical

reason that is more comfortable with flux and revision. Indeed, in a world where “ought”

only implies “can try,” we must sacrifice having our actions match up with our principles

in order to ensure that we can have some grasp on correct principles in the first place. The

idea of being in harmony with oneself is more hermeneutically helpful than the

monotonous consistency with which Kantian deonotology is most often associated. This

is the Pythagorean definition of the healthy soul, which is the goal of both Kantian moral

theory and the psychology of emotional intelligence.

In concluding her study of the Metaphysics of Morals, Gregor remarks that “even

a cursory reading of [it] reveals that Kant’s systematic application of the categorical

imperative is a far different procedure from that usually attributed to him.” She argues

that logical consistency is not the criterion of permissibility; instead “a teleological

consistency between our maxim and our objective, rational ends” is morally required.73 In

other words, having a virtuous disposition is half the battle. We must have an intellectual

grasp of moral duty, and we must act on it. As with our discussion of the mistake

involved in comparing emotional intelligence with the innateness of cognitive

intelligence, Kant defines virtue in terms of disposition and then precludes the possibility

of knowing whether or not one does in fact have a virtuous disposition. Virtue, like

emotional intelligence, must be understood in terms of behavior. It is perhaps the

abstraction of intention from behavior, as well as neglect of Kant’s theory of virtue, that

has led moral theory to detach itself from personal relationships and the understanding of 73 Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 203.

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psychology that is required for having them. Reconciling moral theory and moral

psychology through the moral notion of emotional intelligence will hopefully make moral

theory more useful and psychology more healthful.

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CHAPTER V

THE CONTENT OF KANTIAN “FORMALISM”

My discussion, in chapter 4, of the emotionally enlightening aspects of Kant’s

moral theory may have left some readers bewildered. Kant is seldom praised for his

moral psychology. Quite to the contrary: he has become contemporary moral theory’s

favorite whipping boy. Even while the Stoics are respected for their theory of emotion,

while Kant is criticized as ascetic, un-self-aware, even schizophrenic.1 Of course, critics

of Kant are not without textual ammunition. Kant, like most philosophers, tends to think

in dichotomies and prefers distinctions to analogies. One dichotomy in particular

pervades Kant’s opus and seems to preclude a cognitive theory of emotion, making my

argument that Kant’s moral theory can aid in cultivating emotional intelligence appear

paradoxical at best: namely his dichotomy between reason, which is often described as

“pure”; and “sensibility,” which pertains to the empirical, or a posteriori, elements of

experience. In the context of Kant’s moral theory, this opposition makes its appearance,

and draws the most criticism, as what is referred to as “Kantian formalism.” Kantian

formalism has a long history of both critics and defenders. My strategy is different: I

argue that Kant’s ethics should not be understood as a “formalism” at all and that Kant’s

remarks about the form of the will and formal principles are better interpreted as a

restatement of his universalism. To insist on calling Kant’s ethics “formal” is to reify a

dichotomy that his moral theory can better do without.

1 For example: Nussbaum’s Upheavals of Thought and Stocker’s “The Schizophrenia of Modern Moral Theory.”

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Kant’s moral theory is often called a “formalism,” but the explanation for this

label is just as often confusing. According to Habermas, formalism requires that moral

judgments take the “form of unconditionally universal ought statements.”2 This

explanation fails to differentiate formalism from universalism, i.e., the requirement that

moral judgments hold for all people. Indeed, when we look closely at Kant’s references

to form in his practical philosophy,3 we see that his formalism boils down to nothing

more than a restatement, or attempted deduction, of his universalism. In this chapter I

examine the variety of ways that Kant attempts to account for the formalism of moral

decision-making. I argue that the many attempted distinctions between form and matter—

or content, or ends, consequences, incentives, purposes, effects—all fail.

Furthermore, Kant’s language of form, or the exclusion of the ends from the

determination of the will, becomes unsustainably conflicted when he introduces his idea

of the necessary ends of morality.

Kant’s ethics is, in fact, weaker because of its attempt to explain morality in terms

of formalism. Not only does Kant make himself vulnerable to the criticism of coldness;

the argument for formalism also leads him to overlook the distinction between moral and

pragmatic principles, since both can be formal (a point taken up in the next chapter).4

After my consideration of the many possible ways of explaining formalism, I discuss the

connection between the attempted formalism and the tendency to construe the good will

as merely a gatekeeper of desires that prevents certain desires from being effective.

Instead, the good will should be seen as itself a desire and the creator of an aggregate of

2 Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 64. 3 It is possible that Kant introduces the term “form” in his moral theory either partly or wholly as a result of his desire to establish parallels between his theoretical and practical philosophy. 4 This problem would similarly follow from employing the idea of form from the first Critique for a disanalogous role in the second Critique.

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morally informed desires: it is itself productive, not just the inhibitor of immoral actions.

The gatekeeper reading is perhaps responsible for the criticism that Kant lacks an

adequate moral psychology, a criticism that is misplaced. Focusing instead on Kant’s

theory of virtue shows us that reason can and must inform the choice of ends; only then is

emotional intelligence, indeed, virtue itself, even possible.5

I. What Does “Formalism” Mean?

Kant’s use of the notion of form, and his alleged formalism, are remarkably

difficult to pin down. He begin with the insistence that form must be separated from

content, and the form of universalism is supposedly derived in this way, but as his

argument progresses, he explains that form and content are necessarily interrelated. Kant

first introduces the notion of form in the Groundwork when trying to explain the way that

the good will is unconditionally good irrespective of its “usefulness or fruitfulness”

(Nützlichkeit oder Fruchtlosigkeit)(G 394). Kant makes use of the notion of form after he

has given his argument for the special purpose of reason, which has not ended terribly

successfully (showing only that reason is not very good at seeking happiness, not that

instinct or any other faculty is better). He writes:

From the preceding discussion it is clear that the purposes we may have for our actions and their effects as ends and incentives of the will cannot give the actions any unconditional and moral worth. Wherein, then, can this worth lie, if not in the will in its relation to its hoped for effect? It can lie nowhere else than in the principle of the will irrespective of the ends which can be realized by such action. For the will stands, as it were, at the crossroads halfway between its a priori principle which is formal and its a posteriori incentive which is material. Since it must be determined by something, if it is done from duty it must be determined by the formal

5 In this way, my interpretation of Kant has much in common with Barbara Herman’s emphasis of practical reason.

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principle of volition as such, since every material principle has been withdrawn from it. (G 400)

This picture of the will at a crossroads is quite intriguing. It could be interpreted to mean

that the will requires both formal and material elements, as Kant seems to argue later, but

that is not the typical meaning of “being at a crossroads” (auf einem Scheidewege), and

the following sentence makes it clear that Kant means that we must choose between

formal (a priori) and material (a posteriori) determination. Still, the fact that the

divergence of the two roads is simultaneously a coming together foreshadows Kant’s

later inclusivity.

For those familiar with the first Critique, wherein Kant insists on the necessary

unity of the form and content (both in the case of intuition and understanding, as the two

sets of forms turn out to be interrelated), this use of the notion of form in order to contrast

form and content, and even rid the latter from the former, is surprising. Drawing on the

first Critique, Beck’s interpretation of Kantian formalism focuses on the necessary

interdependence between form and matter, which can be gleaned from pieces of text we

will consider shortly, especially the second Critique’s presentation of the argument. Beck

writes:

[Kant’s] theorem disqualifies only those maxims which are chosen to guide conduct because of the content, i.e., because of their reference to an object of desire (material) as the determining factor. All maxims have material, but only the latter are material maxims. Content (object of desire) without form is blind impulse; form without object of desire is practically ineffective—this is as true of Kant’s ethics as the corresponding sentence in the first Critique is of his theory of knowledge.6

This mutual dependence is not the relationship Kant has in mind when he first brings up

the notion of form in the Groundwork; the only parallel between the Groundwork’s use of

6 Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 96.

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the notion of form, as we have just seen it, and the first Critique is that for both the notion

of form bears a special affinity to the notion of the a priori.

Kant uses a number of different terms to characterize a posteriori motivation.

“Material” is given as synonymous with “intended result” (“was aus ihr erfolgen soll”),

“result” (Erfolg), and the ends or purpose (Zwecke or Absicht) of an action. He quickly

hones in on the term “effect,” (Wirkung or Wirkungen, which is also translated as

“consequences”) contrasting those actions that are done to bring about some effect with

those actions that are done because they conform to a formal principle, which, he argues,

must be “the conception of law itself”(G 401). This implies that the motive of

universalism is the only possible a priori determination of the will; yet in the previous

quote, Kant implies that all principles are formal by defining the formal aspect of the will

as its principle. Kant later distinguishes between formal and material principles, but here

this looseness serves his purposes. Indeed, the phrase “the form of the will” is singular.

The will is essentially the faculty of acting on maxims; the form of the will is a maxim,

which is a principle or a universal. Therefore, the form of the will is universality.

The notion of the form of the will is instrumental for introducing the idea of

universalism and the first formulation of the categorical imperative. The word “form” is

given as synonymous with the word “principle.” Kant’s argument for, or presentation of,

the first version of the categorical imperative runs as follows:

1. A “good will” is something good regardless of consequences.

2. Motivation by intended consequences constitutes all the possible content of a

will.

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3. If we remove all of the possible content from the idea of a will, we are left

with the form of a will.

4. The form of a will is universality, or lawfulness, since a will is the faculty of

acting according to the understanding of laws.

5. Therefore, a good will is determined not by its content, but by its form,

universality.

6. Therefore a good will is a will that conforms to universality.7

As we see, here Kant’s use of the notion of form is tied to the introduction of the first

formulation of the categorical imperative and the notion of universality: it refers to the

form of the will, or universality.8 Furthermore, it is important to note that this use of the

notion of form specifically requires its opposition to content, regardless of whether we

call this content the “ends,” “effects,” or “results” of an action.9

In order to derive universality as the form of the will in this way, Kant must

conflate a principle with an intention, i.e., he must assume that every intention is

7 There are obviously a number of problems with this argument, but we should not feel the need to defend it or to criticize Kant on this score. Kant does not even present it as an argument, much less is it a deduction of the categorical imperative, as Kant believes the moral law needs no “justification.” Nor is this the only formulation of the moral law, so Kant has other means of convincing us, should this one fail. 8 It is difficult to state Kant’s formalism at all without resorting to his universalism: in his Introduction to the Groundwork, Beck writes, “Since we have, in the examples, taken away the contents of the maxim (the wants and desires of the persons), nothing is left to be determined by the law except the form of the maxim; its form must be such as to exclude any contents that would prevent the maxim from itself being universal, i.e., valid for all persons as rational beings regardless of their specific desires. The maxim must, in effect, be capable of being a universal law for all rational beings.” Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, xiii. The point seems to be that it is a method of subtraction that leads to universalism, following Kant’s presentation of the idea of the form of the will, or universality. 9 Kant’s third use of the notion of form in the Groundwork is rather different than the preceding. The second expression of the first version of the categorical imperative is the “Law of Nature” formulation. Therein, Kant states that “nature” refers to “the existence of things so far as it is determined by universals laws;” nature, in this sense, is the form of phenomena (G 421). This use of the term is clearly distinct from the previous because it implies correlation between form and matter much more than contrast. As we shall see, many attempt to defend Kant’s notion of formalism precisely by means of the fact that the notion of form seems to require the inclusion of content. Nevertheless, as we have seen, this is not the meaning of “form” of which Kant has heretofore made use, even if it turns out that empirical content is necessary for moral decision-making. Kant uses the word again in this sense on G 438.

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universal or law-like in some way. Here the argument really runs: wills are formed by

their intentions; intentions are law-like; hence the form of the will is universality. As we

shall see, if the form of a will is simply its principle, then the distinction between

“content” and “form” becomes the rather flimsy idea that one comes before and the other

after action. Since a principle contains reference to the effects of the action, the difference

between it and its “content” cannot be anything more than modal.

The fourth use of the term “form” in the Groundwork introduces the idea of

formal and material principles: “practical principles are formal when they disregard all

subjective purposes; they are material when they have subjective purposes and thus

certain incentives as their basis”(G 427). For those familiar with Kant’s moral

philosophy, it is clear that Kant never means to imply that there is ultimately more than

one formal principle, the moral law; referring to formal principles highlights all of the

many actions that can possibly conform to the moral law.

In the Critique of Practical Reason, wherein Kant devotes even more time to the

notion of formalism, Kant’s discussion of form is largely focused on the ideas of formal

and material principles. In the beginning of the “Analytic” Kant lays out three theorems.

The first theorem states that empirical principles (or principles that presuppose an

object/matter) lack objective necessity. The second theorem is that “all material

principles… belong under the general principle of self-love or one’s own

happiness”(CPrR 22).

In general, the second Critique’s explanation of formalism is tied much more

closely to the notions of subjectivity and objectivity. Kant makes use of these notions in

the Groundwork, but later they come to the forefront. Kant tries to explain the ways that

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actions undertaken for the sake of some physical objects are subjective, and hence cannot

be commanded by (objective) practical laws. In his “Comment” on this “Explication” of

the principles of pure practical reason, Kant argues that the idea of a practical law and the

idea of validity regardless of consequences are reciprocal concepts. A practical law yields

exactly that imperative that is not relative to the ends to be achieved by the action and the

desirability of those ends. Content is a problem because it is subjective, and subjectivity

evades universality.

The third theorem follows the presentation of formalism in the Groundwork more

closely, drawing an equation between a universal law and the form of a principle. Here

Kant explicitly states that all practical principles have matter, but that only in the case of

material principles does this matter actually determine the principle. Again, Kant writes

that if we subtract all of the matter as a possible determining basis of the will, then only

the form of the will is left, which is “the mere form of a universal legislation”(CPrR 27).

Therefore, if form and matter are opposed, they are not opposed in competition for a

place in the will, but merely a place determining the will. The will being at a crossroads

is therefore a good image since in one sense form and content are united in the will, and

in another sense they diverge.

Kant’s distinction between the matter of the will, which is a necessary component

of the will, and material determination of the will is tricky. It amounts to a distinction

between the action itself (or the physical goal of the action, that which the action aims to

bring about materially) and the reason or rational purpose for the action. We might say

that this is roughly a distinction between the intention and effects of an action. The

problem is that it seems impossible to formulate an intention for action without reference

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to an intended effect.10 Indeed, Kant sometimes attempts to distinguish between purposes

or ends (Zwecke) and effects or consequences (Wirkungen) in order to help articulate the

difference between the material of the will, which is a necessary component, and material

determination, which is morally problematic. After introducing the idea in the

Groundwork that rational being is a necessary end, Kant makes a distinction between the

taking up of a purpose or an end (Zweck) that is given by reason alone, which still allows

the ground/motive of the action to be objective, and an end that aims at an effect

(Wirkung):

That which serves the will as its objective ground of its self-determination is a purpose (Zweck), and if it is given by reason alone it must hold alike for all rational beings. On the other hand, that which contains the ground of the possibility of the action, whose result is an end, is called the means.”(G 427)

It seems as though Kant hopes to make the “purpose” of an action appear as something

more internal and more closely related to the meaning of “motive.” Kant seems to think

that he can make the distinction between actions that are the product of a good will and

those that are not by means of the distinction between “purposes” that are in the mind and

“effects” that are physical. Instead, the only source for objectivity of the will that Kant

gives is the universality of the principle of the action. Every physical goal will first be

mentally comprehended: it will first find a place in the motive and then, when it is

enacted, it will have physical reality. Of course, some motives are good and some are

evil, but the distinction between “purposes” and motives that aim at “effects” does not do

a very good job expressing the content of a good will.

10 Herman makes this point in Barbara Herman, Morality as Rationality: A Study of Kant’s Ethics (New York: Garland, 1990).

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The very nature of intentional action involves a motive, which is a mental entity,

that aims at a physical effect, which is then brought about. (We must not be confused into

thinking that the fact that actions can have unintended or indirect consequences does not

change the fact that the purpose of the action must include a reference to the intended

effects of the action. The idea of intentional action includes only that content that is

intentional.) If I aim at buying a coat for a homeless person, my object is both

phenomenal (the coat itself) and noumenal (the idea of the coat as something that can

help). If the end of my action is another person’s happiness, then my goal must be to

bring about the objects that are a part of my plan to promote this happiness.11

Examples of negative duties, whereby we refrain from some action, help

us illustrate the possibility of making a distinction between choice based on the

(rational) “purposes” (or motive) and the effects of an action more than positive

duties do. When we refrain from lying, even though the lie would bring benefit,

we are not choosing in favor of the consequence of benefit, but we are choosing

not to lie because doing so is wrong (this is a purely intangible reason, seemingly

disconnected from a physical effect). On the other hand, when we help someone

in need, it appears that we do act for the sake of a certain consequence, viz., the

benefit of the person in need. Still, it is possible to shift our way of thinking and

argue that negative duties still bring about ends, such as the demonstration of a

good will, truthfulness in the world, or even the simple act of keeping our mouth

shut.

11 For this reason Herman holds that hypothetical imperatives are just as important for moral reasoning and categorical imperatives. I think that it is unnecessary to bring in the term “hypothetical imperative” here to describe a part of practical reasoning and that doing so risks taking the term out of context of Kant’s distinction, wherein it refers to actions that are undertaken myopically, as it were, only to achieve a particular end, not because of a consideration of the universality of the end.

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Failing to grasp the necessary connection between purpose and effect, taking

Kant’s formalism at face value, may be the cause for the unnecessarily strong emphasis

placed on negative duties in accounts of Kant’s ethics. Instead, when we fully understand

that “purpose” and “effect” are related, we can better understand Kant’s discussion of a

good will. A good will is something on which we must follow through. If, for example,

our end is to not overcharge our customers, we cannot rightly boast a good will, unless

this end is related to further goal to bring about goodness of character and having our

actions conform to the universal law of morality. Of course, normally we focus much

more attention on our immediate goals, and this leads us to forget about the role of moral

principles in our lives. Nevertheless, moral goodness is essentially the adoption of a

good, pure will, and, in order to test our moral goodness, we must shift our focus away

from our immediate goals and onto the more distant end of moral goodness. This end,

even though it is moral-psychological, still requires that we do certain things and bring

about real effects. Thus, as we have previously discussed, there is the duty to take the

moral law as one’s end and the duty to self-scrutinize.

Do we help someone in need in order to bring about the effect of his happiness or

do we do it because it is the right thing to do? If we understand the necessary relationship

between motivation and end, this question, as well as Stocker’s example of visiting a

friend in the hospital purely out of duty, does not make sense.12 It does not make sense

because the right thing to do is to promote the happiness of others. We promote the

happiness of others because we care about the happiness of others; we care about the

happiness of others because we really do care about the happiness of others. We really do

12 Michael Stocker, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” The Journal of Philosophy 73, no. 14 (1976): 453-466.

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care about the happiness of others because it is the right thing to do. Nevertheless, it is

the right thing to do because it is the happiness of others. Imagine someone asking you

while you are getting clothes together to donate to the needy: Are you doing that because

you care about the people who need clothes or are you doing it because it is the right

thing to do? You will most likely answer “both.” They are the same because we have a

moral compass that informs and guides our feelings and concerns. Such moral direction

has been operative in our upbringing, and is an inseparable part of our intuition,

psychology, and development of emotional intelligence.

Kant continues on to develop the notion of formalism in terms of the distinction

between motive and incentive. He offers us another distinction: Some purposes are purely

rational and they offer us motives (Bewegungsgrund) (since the idea of an action without

any purpose seems self-contradictory), but other purposes, which are empirical and the

objects of inclination, stand as incentives (Triebfedern).13 Obviously the term “incentive”

connotes some kind of selfish benefit for Kant. The German, Treibfedern, is related to the

word for drive or desire, Trieb, and so it is conceptually connected to what Kant

considers the “lower” or animalistic faculties. In his Lectures on Moral Philosophy, Kant

distinguished between objective and subjective motives (motivum subjecte movens and

motivum objecte movens) as those reasons for action that only refer to subjective benefit

and those reasons that can hold universally. Similarly, in the Preface to the Metaphysics

of Morals, Kant distinguishes between moral and pathological principles with a reference

to personal happiness:

13 We might also try to make a distinction with the term “interest,” but Kant clearly states that both moral and immoral actions are the product of interests: “an interest is that in virtue of which reason becomes practical” (G 460).

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For on the one hand he ought to fulfill his duty without first asking what effect this will have on his happiness, and so on moral grounds; but on the other hand he can recognize that something is his duty only by whether he can count on gaining happiness by doing it, and so in accordance with a pathological principle, which is the direct opposite of the moral principle. (MM 6:378)

Kant argues that the “consequences” of an action are irrelevant to moral decision-making

because they are only of interest to the particular actor, not objectively, or universally

valuable (G 427-428).14 It seems that Kant conflates consequences that benefit the subject

in a merely selfish way, as he takes personal happiness to, with all consequences. (Kant

often conflates selfishness and sensuousness because he thinks of sensibility as based on

instincts for survival.15)

Even if it were possible to make a distinction between the will having matter and

the will being determined by that matter, this explanation runs up against even more

trouble when we consider Kant’s notion of necessary moral ends. Moral worth was to be

measured without reference to the “ends”(Zwecke) of the action (G 400), or at least these

ends were not to determine the will, but the idea that rational being is a necessary end for

the good will calls for a revision of this restriction.

II. The Formalism of Necessary Ends

Even though the Groundwork and second Critique both contain a discussion of

necessary ends (since Kant defines virtue as having a good will and a good will is one

that has pure intentions), Kant most fully develops the idea of the necessary moral ends in

14 Beck makes a distinction between the term motive and the term intention. I believe his point is that motives can be abstract, e.g., one can have the moral law as a motive. An intention, on the other hand, is concrete and to bring about some end. In a moral act, you desire some end only because you have already judged it to be moral; hence the judgment guides the intention. 15 Beck follows Kant in this elision. Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 216-217.

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his “Doctrine of Virtue.” It is strange that the “Doctrine of Right” has received more

attention than Kant’s “Doctrine of Virtue” with its discussion of the necessary, moral

ends of the will. The “Doctrine of Right” treats only those laws that can be legislated

externally and so does not truly belong to ethics proper. Nevertheless, there has been a

strong liberal pull in Kant interpretation.

In the “Doctrine of Virtue” Kant directly contradicts his previous “formalism” by

asserting that

ethics goes beyond [the formal condition of outer freedom dealt with by the doctrine of right] and provides a matter (an object of free choice), an end of pure reason, which it represents as an end that is also objectively necessary, that is, an end that, as far as human beings are concerned, it is a duty to have. (MM 6: 381)

Kant argues that if there were no such thing as morally necessary ends, the categorical

imperative and morality itself would be impossible (MM 6:385). Kant makes this same

argument in the Groundwork, stating that the idea of a necessary end is required in order

to be the source of absolute moral value, but there his discussion of formalism

overshadows it (G 428). Still, he writes that the necessary end of rational being is the

difference between a hypothetical and categorical imperative.16 In the “Doctrine of

Virtue” Kant seems to have given up his connection between formalism and morality

entirely, as he continues to call the doctrine of right a “formal” discipline while ethics is

“material”:

Those duties that have to do not so much with a certain end (matter, object of choice) as merely with what is formal in the moral determination of the will (e.g., that an action in conformity with duty must also be done from duty) are not duties of virtue. Only an end that is also a duty can be called a duty of virtue. For this reason there are several duties of virtue (and also

16 Contrariwise, Kant argues that hypothetical imperatives necessarily miss their mark as foundations for moral worth because, in order to make them into categorical imperatives we must have another law that makes their end necessary (G 444).

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various virtues), whereas for the first kind of duty one (virtuous disposition) is thought, which however holds for all actions. (MM 6: 383)17

Nevertheless, Kant does not consistently attempt to distinguish right from virtue in terms

of form and matter; the essential distinction is that rights are the object of external

coercion and virtues can only be the result of “free self-constraint” (MM 6:383). Instead,

the notion of formalism seems to have fallen away from his moral and political theory.

In the Groundwork, after describing the rational being and the kingdom of ends

formulations of the categorical imperative, Kant makes use of the notion of form once

again in order to explain the relationship between the three formulations of the

categorical imperative:

All maxims have: 1. A form, which consists in universality, and in this

respect the formula of the moral imperative requires that maxims be chosen as though they should hold as universal laws of nature.

2. A material (Maxime) (i.e., an end), and in this respect the formula says that the rational being, has by its nature an end and thus an end in itself, must serve in every maxim as the condition restricting all merely relative and arbitrary ends.

3. A complete determination of all maxims by the formula that all maxims which stem from autonomous legislation ought to harmonize with a possible realm of ends as with a realm of nature.18 (G 436)

17 Here Kant writes that the duty of right, insofar as the external demands of right are command morally at all, is to have the moral disposition. Later Kant writes that this is a duty of virtue. It would seem that having duty as one’s action be done from the intention to do one’s duty is an end, although not an external end. Nevertheless, the “Doctrine of Virtue shows that ends are both external and internal (or states of mind and states of the world). I believe that Kant’s distinction between form and matter still continues to confuse him here: now that he is clear that there are necessary moral ends, he has trouble describing the doctrine of right without them. 18 It is interesting to note that Kant uses the word “form” after this, and even once before this as a verb, but always in different contexts, not in the service of describing unconditional moral worth. It is as though Kant feels the need to carry through with the introduction of the term, but is no longer committed to its original sense.

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Not only are form and matter mutually implicated, but the tripartite organization

implies that they are only fully complete when united. Here Kant explains that all

maxims have an end and that the categorical imperative regulates the choice of

end.19 Ends can be relative and contingent or morally necessary. The categorical

imperative regulates the choice of ends, sometimes negatively, forbidding some

ends, and sometimes positively, guiding the adoption of others.

In the second Critique’s presentation of formalism, Kant seems to be aware of the

problem to which I have pointed, namely the contradiction caused for his notion of

formalism by the idea of necessary ends. He again makes reference to the distinction

between formal and material principles, but it has become impossible to articulate what it

means to determine the will without reference to objects or ends once we have accepted

that the happiness of others is a necessary end. He has no choice but to reframe his

argument in terms of his criticism of sympathy:

Now it is indeed undeniable that any volition must also have an object and hence a matter. But the matter is not, just because of this, the determining basis and condition of the maxim. For if it is, then the maxim cannot be exhibited in universally legislative form, since then the expectation of the object’s existence would be the determining cause of the power of choice, and the dependence of the power of desire on some thing’s existence would have to be laid at the basis of volition—a dependence which can always be sought only in empirical conditions and hence can never provide the basis for a necessary and universal rule. Thus presumably the happiness of other beings can be the object of a rational being’s will. But if it were the maxim’s determining basis, then one would have to presuppose that we find not only a natural gratification in the well-being

19 Herman attempts to maintain a distinction between consequences and ends: “a good will does not ignore consequences: good willing is with respect to an end,” but consequences “are not the point at which either rationality or moral goodness are assessed;” yet, later she writes: “Consequences do count as morally relevant in two ways, then: the consequences we intend count as they appear in our maxims of action, and we are required to take sufficient means to promote our ends.” Herman, Morality as Rationality, 288-289. Furthermore, in the first chapter of this work she argues that the end of an action is necessary for specifying the content of the action. I totally agree, as does Kant. This early study ignores the doctrine of necessary ends, but she takes it up in her more recent work. Barbara Herman, “Reasoning to Obligation,” Inquiry 49, no. 1 (2006): 44-61.

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of others but also a need, such as the sympathetic mentality brings with it in human beings. But this need I cannot presuppose in every rational being (and in God not at all). Hence the mater of the maxim can indeed remain, but it must not be the maxim’s condition, for otherwise the maxim would not be suitable for a law.”(CPrR 34)

Taking the happiness of others as the determining basis of a maxim now means to be

pathologically gratified by their happiness and taking it as a rational object of the will

means that one is intellectually gratified by it (because one cognizes it as a morally

necessary end). Thereby, formalism develops into the dichotomy between pathological

and intellectual pleasure, which is itself only comprehensible as the dichotomy between

selfishness and universalism. Without reference to the idea of universalism, there is

nothing to specify the reason that one pleasure is lower and the other higher because, of

course, pathological pleasure is no more pathological than intellectual pleasure is.

Kant’s argumentative moves in this step of the presentation of formalism are

winding, so it is necessary for us to examine them slowly and carefully. First, we see his

objection that materially determined actions cannot be the subject of universal laws.

Material determination of the will supposedly prevents it from being “exhibited in

universally legislative form.” For example, if my goal is to get up and make a bottle in

order to feed my baby for the sake of feeling satisfied that he is happy, the fact that my

goal is feeling satisfied counts as material determination of the will because it makes the

action relative to me. We can see that this idea overlaps with Kant’s criticism of

sympathy: let’s say that I were depressed and knew that I would feel no better after

feeding him than before. If my goal were only to feel happy, in this superficial sense, then

I would have no reason to feed him. As we saw from chapter 3, Kant’s criticism of

sympathy refers to only a totally unthinking version of sympathy. In practice, most

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people would feel the intellectual/moral feeling of sympathy in this case; in other words,

they feel happy because they recognize that caring is the right thing to do; feeling happy

naturally goes along with this. In that case, the parent would still do the right thing even

if he were depressed, because he is doing it out of proper moral comprehension.

Still, Kant’s argument that the feeling should not be the thing that determines the

will is strange. The thinking that happens in a intention takes up the idea of the object;

feeling pleasure takes up the real object itself—but action also aims at the real object

itself and brings it into existence. Nor can we class an action as subjective just because it

refers to the self since the self as a rational being is a necessary moral end. If an action

evades universality just because it is conditioned by empirical existence, then no action

could possibly be universal. Again, we must point to a necessary connection between

purpose and effect. If the parent were making a bottle not to promote the baby’s

happiness but in order to simply get the kid to shut up, the action clearly loses any moral

worth it may have had, but not because the “matter” has now determined the will more

than it did before; instead, it lacks moral worth because the principle has changed and it

is no longer universalizable. Furthermore, the parent in this case fails to take up the

necessary end of promoting the happiness of others, specifically his dependents.20 Again,

we see that Kant’s formalism can be nothing other than universalism.

Kant’s criticism of sympathy is the same as his criticism of happiness. Laws, in

order to be laws, must contain the same content for everyone, or the same “determining

basis of the will in all cases”(CpR 25). Even though Kant believes that it is natural for all

people to be pleased with themselves in similar circumstances, such as when they realize

20 See Diane M. Williamson, “Familial Duties and Emotional Intelligence,” (forthcoming) for an argument that we have the duty to direct our duties toward others in this way.

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they are morally good, he argues that each person’s idea of happiness is different and tied

to his or her particular experience of pleasure and gratification. Indeed, we see that Kant

brings up the notion of sympathy because he takes the sympathetic person to act for the

pleasure of helping. We are already familiar with Kant’s criticism of sympathy, namely

that, as a pre-rational impulse, it is not reliable and not a trustworthy guide of action. In

short, it is simply unrelated to moral goodness. Here Kant adds that it cannot be the

subject of a moral imperative because, being based on the subjective sense of pleasure, it

cannot be presupposed in every rational being. Rationality, on the other hand, can be

presupposed in every rational being, and if sympathy were the product of rationality, such

as with the rational/moral directive to cultivate sympathy, it could be commanded. As we

have seen from our discussion of Kant’s philosophy of emotion, Kant understands

emotions, such as sympathy, to be pre-reflective impulses, and it is impossible to

rationally command a pre-reflective impulse.

If we accept his assumption that feelings are pre-reflective impulses, his argument

for the subjectivity of sympathy is convincing enough, but it is little more than a non

sequitur for his argument for formalism. Instead, Kant changes the terms of the debate,

from the existence of ends of the action to the pathological gratification or pleasure taken

in this end, in order to provide some justification for his previous argument that moral

decision-making must exclude a consideration of the objects of the action. Instead, the

“purity” of the principle of volition can and should be defined in terms of its fitness for a

universal law, not its relationship to its “material.”

Wood argues that

the teleology of the Doctrine of Virtue is based not on a material end—an end the desire for which grounds our choice of actions, which are valued

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simply as a means to it—but is rather derived from a formal principle, which tells us which ends are objectively worth pursuing and hence gives rise to the rational desire for them.21

We can see that Wood reformulates the distinction between material and formal

determination, whereby the former was determination based on ends, into a distinction

between material and formal ends in order to preserve Kant’s formalism in the face of the

necessary ends of the Doctrine of Virtue. Kant does argue that the necessary ends of

virtue are “set against the end arising from sensible impulses,” but he does not

reintroduce the language of formalism into his characterization of necessary ends (MM

6:381). Nevertheless, Wood’s distinction is helpful if it reminds us to trace Kantian

formalism back to universalism, since formal ends as those that are universalizable.

Wood’s new distinction, between formal and material ends, seems to be the

expression of different Kantian themes: his worry over determinism by “sensible

impulses.” If we adopt certain ends we are not free; instead those ends determine the will,

not just in the sense of giving content to the will, but in the sense of forcing the will to act

a certain way. It is no surprise that these ends are said to be the product of the “lower”

faculty of desire, corresponding to Kant’s notion of heteronomy, whereby some aspects

of the self that are less properly identified with the self can exercise control over other

parts of the self, making the whole self not free. On the other hand, the latter parts of the

self, those which are properly identified with the whole self, can control the “lower” parts

of self and make the whole self free, even though half of the self is still being controlled.

We see that, in Wood’s distinction, “formal” and “principle” are functionally

synonymous, making the issue one of rationality. When a “rational desire” gives rise to

21 Allen Wood, “The Final Form of Kant’s Practical Philosophy,” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mark Timmons (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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the ends of action, they are acceptable. Of course, the notion of universalizability must be

built it, but Wood, as well as Kant, means for there to be something more behind the idea

of formalism: a bifurcation of the self into rational and irrational parts and the assertion

that the latter rob the self of its freedom. In other words, Kantian formalism leads to

Kant’s notion of autonomy (which will be discussed in the next chapter).

In order to understand Kant’s attempted formalism we must focus on the

“heteronomy” half of his autonomy/heteronomy distinction. Material determination

entails determination by the “lower” faculty of desire. The essential point of morality

often seems to be, as Kant writes, “that [man] should not follow his inclinations (LE 122,

C 27:345). We must examine why this might be the case and what its implications are for

the relationship between Kantian moral theory and the cultivation of emotional

intelligence.

III. “Man Should Not Follow His Inclinations”

As we have seen, Kant turns to the idea of pleasure to make the connection

between formalism and the lower faculty of desire. Kant writes

if the desire for this object precedes the practical rule, and is the condition for making the rule one’s principle, then… the principle is always empirical … Such a relation to the subject is called pleasure in the actuality of the object. (CPrR 21)

The principled choice of ends is contrasted to those ends that are chosen because of their

pleasure. This distinction has been mistakenly interpreted as the injunction that moral

action cannot be pleasurable, but we can see that such is not what is at stake here. Instead,

the idea of pleasure is used to refer to an immediate, irrational, and idiosyncratic

relationship to the object. It is strange to see Kant assume that pleasure must be irrational,

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as it is well-known that his aesthetic theory discusses not only the intellectual pleasure of

the aesthetic experience, but also similar intellectual pleasures, such as moral pleasure.

Perhaps that theory was born to rectify the breach caused by this definition of pleasure.

Pleasure is morally permissible when it does not conflict with duty, but it is not

itself universally commanded. (Such a universal law would be differently worded, not

“Everyone should have an ice-cream cone now,” but “It’s okay for people to have an ice-

cream cone, if there is no reason not to.”). Still, morally worthy happiness is a necessary

end of morality, and so any pleasure that it might require can be the subject of a universal

law, if we assume that certain aspects of the experience of pleasure are universal.

Unfortunately, this is not Kant’s line of thinking in his derision of pleasure.

Instead, his discussion of pleasure relies on a confused parallel between the first and

second Critiques. Kant writes that pleasure requires the existence of the object. Kant

always opposes form to matter, not content, because matter calls to mind empiricism.

This description makes sense if we take physical pleasure, or pleasure that requires

physical, bodily contact with the object (like touch or taste) for all pleasure. It is thereby a

receptive faculty, and as such it is meant to gesture toward Kant’s theory of sensibility

from the first Critique (CpR 22). As receptive, it is transitively both unfree and empirical,

which, in Kant’s sense, means that it is not law-governed. The first Critique offers an

attempt to explain the possibility and origin of scientific laws by means of the a priori

structure of experience (the categories of the understanding). Kant assumes that those

aspects of experience that are externally derived cannot ground lawfulness and those that

are derived from the universal structures of experience can. Kant’s use of the notion of

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pleasure in his practical philosophy, then, draws from his theoretical philosophy’s

definition of sensibility: making pleasure both receptive and unlawful.

This parallel between sensibility and pleasure (which is standing in for the lower

faculty of desire) breaks down both because desire is not receptive and because Kant’s

theoretical and practical philosophies necessarily make use of different notions of

lawfulness. There is not very much in common between desire for the existence of an

object and the receptiveness to sensation—that is, if we buy Kant’s argument that

necessity cannot be grounded a posteriori in the first place. We sometimes use the word

“feeling” in this ambiguous way to refer to sensations that are both internally and

externally generated, but the two different senses of feeling are, in fact, very different. An

internally generated desire for an object does not involve receptivity; it is, of course, an

active drive. In Kant’s practical philosophy, reason takes the place of the understanding

in transforming the subjective into the objective. Reason must educate the inclinations,

sometimes merely acting as a gate-keeper, denying or permitting them, but more often

reason must mold the inclinations so that they conform to the necessary ends of morality.

The Understanding of Kant’s theoretical philosophy does not create physical objects, it

merely represents them. Furthermore, it does not give actual content to sensibility; reason

does give content to the inclinations—this is the essential definition of practical

philosophy.22

Kant’s argument got started on the wrong foot by assuming that desire for the

existence of an object can be relegated to the “lower” faculty of desire and thereby

represented as desire for a physical pleasure. Still, “pleasure” is meant to describe the

22 See Herman’s discussion of the fact that we are active in regard to our desires. Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment, 194-195.

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problem with material determination because pleasures are taken to be subjective. In one

sense of “subjectivity,” pleasures are subjective because they are internal experiences, but

this sense fails to differentiate pleasure from reasoning. Pleasure, as physical pleasure, is

subjective in another sense, one that is problematic for moral decision-making, because it

concerned with the self not just in being a property of the self but because it threatens to

value the self above everything else. In other words, it is selfish. It often seems that

selfishness is all that it is behind Kant’s notion of subjectivity.

Kant’s “second theorem of practical philosophy” defines all material principles as

principles aimed at “self-love or happiness.” Subjectivity, in this case, is opposed to

objectivity, because it is connected to aims that are particular to the subject, aims that

ultimately lead back to the subject himself, his survival and happiness. As we have

already seen from the connection between Kant’s theory of emotion and his theory of

inclination, the agent may or may not end up valuing his survival and happiness above

morality, but in so far as these subjective ends are disconnected from the thought of

morality, and not synthetically united with it by means of the idea of morally worthy

happiness, they always threaten to supplant morality.

In this way, it sometimes seems that “happiness” and “inclination” are terms,

associated with the “lower” faculty of desire, that are defined by their selfishness and

short-sightedness.23 They are meant to refer to someone who is limited to the pursuit of

immediate goals and physical pleasures, rather than someone who takes the time to 23 Nevertheless, the problem with subjective principles cannot simply be that they are selfish. Kant, at least occasionally, makes a distinction between purely selfish motives and effects in general. Here is writes that it does not matter whether the sought after effects are one’s own happiness or the happiness of others: neither can be the source of moral goodness (G 401). It is surprising to see Kant stating that taking up the end the happiness of others cannot be the source of moral goodness. The notion of morally necessary ends, namely, the happiness of others and the perfection of oneself, is not unique to the Metaphysics of Morals. Even the Groundwork goes on to explain the necessary end of human dignity as the material of the moral law.

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reflect and form rational principles, much less the rational, moral principle. Just as with

Kant’s theory of emotion, it is as though there are two levels of happiness and two levels

of motivation, the first of which must be refined into the second.

Paton explains Kant’s distinction between the moral motive and the motives of

inclination as a struggle against “unruly impulses and desires.”24 This seems like a

strange way to put the point. Of course, Kant defines inclination as opposed to morality,

but to call inclinations unruly makes it sound as though we have already achieved a good

will or that inclinations can all be summed up as animal instincts over which we have

little control. This is not only a false account of badness, it externalizes the source of the

evil impulse, making it out to be rare and foreign, rather than commonplace. This

understanding of desire precludes self-criticism. Gregor, on the other hand, recognizes

that Kant’s definition of virtue as a struggle refers to a struggle of self-improvement:

As Kant works out the implications of the command to master our feelings and inclination, it means that the sensuous appetitive side of our nature is not to be suppressed altogether, but rather to be brought under the control of pure practical reason. He distinguishes, in general, between feelings and inclinations which precede our deliberation about duty and tend to confuse it, and those which follow upon our determination of what constitutes our duty and can help us to act more effectively in fulfilling it. As our moral attitude gathers strength, we gradually free ourselves from the uncontrolled uprising of the former, while at the same time we develop and put to use such affective capacities as can assist us in carrying out our moral purposes. Feelings and inclinations of the second type, cultivated and controlled by pure practical reason, are entirely consistent with inner freedom.25

24 H. J. Paton, “Analysis of the Argument,” in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1964), 18. 25 Gregor, Laws of Freedom, 74. To Gregor’s characterization of the positive role that emotion plays in Kant’s moral theory, my argument’s emphasis on emotional intelligence contributes a discussion of the means by which the first kind of emotions, those that seem unruly, can be understood and translated into important psychological insights that aid in cultivating moral emotions.

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In order to eschew Kant’s seemingly troubling comments on pleasure, inclination,

and the “lower” faculty of desire, recent interpreters have played up the importance of

happiness and “freedom” (although not the specifically Kantian sense of freedom, as we

shall see in the next chapter) in Kant’s philosophy. When reading Kant, it sometimes

seems as though different texts are the product of very different moods. Sometimes Kant

chooses to emphasize the corrosive and wayward nature of inclinations, as they compel

us always toward our selfish and irrational notions of “happiness;” other times Kant

focuses on true happiness, or morally worthy happiness, and the person whose rational

desires cheerfully seek the good. Anyone who studies Kant is well acquainted with his

sunnier disposition as well as with his deprecatory dualisms.

The Kingdom of Ends formulation of the categorical imperative, as a synthesis of

the first and second formulations, does a particularly good job of expressing a harmony

between happiness and morality, as well as the confluence of justice and morality. Kant’s

notion of the Kingdom of Ends is a vision of the coordination of ends, both moral and

amoral. In the Kingdom of Ends, people need to use others as means to subjective

happiness, but they also always treat others as ends-in-themselves. The Kingdom of Ends

is the vision of the Highest Good instantiated: people are able to achieve happiness—

each in her own individual pursuit—and each person’s happiness is compatible with

everyone else’s happiness and dignity. Everyone’s happiness is morally worthy because it

is conditioned upon universal happiness. The Kingdom of Ends ideal should not be

confused with the “race of devils,” that Kant discusses in “Perpetual Peace,” who are

made to look as though they are morally good because they are externally constrained by

well-formed laws (PP 112). Treating someone as an end-in-herself is not a merely

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negative goal, as we might construe respect as a kind of leaving someone alone, an end is

a positive determination of the will, and it requires that we follow through with it by

promoting the happiness of others (as well as our own personal self-perfection).

Recent interpretive focus on happiness has lead to yet a different version of

Kantian formalism: one that asserts that inclination plays a necessary role in determining

the will. Engstrom and Guyer, among others, portray Kant’s formalism as entailing a

necessary relationship between form and content, the form being universalism and the

content being any particular inclination (so long as it is sufficiently universalizable).

Engstrom argues that “Kant locates the form of practical knowledge in the idea of a

practical law (or what he calls ‘the mere form of universal legislation’), and he identifies

the matter with the objects to be produced through that knowledge, such as objects of

sensible desire, the things we find pleasing or agreeable.”26 Guyer agrees with my

analysis that Kant holds that ends are necessary parts of maxims, but he also agrees with

Engstrom, that inclinations necessarily make up the material element of the will. This

argument is not faithful to Kant’s use of the term “inclination” (Neigung), which is

essentially derisive. Guyer, following Korsgaard, argues that the ultimate end is freedom,

or the ability of rational beings to set their own ends.

Does the material aspect of the will always include an end set by sensible desire

or inclination, making the form of universality the only characteristic of a good will? This

interpretation implies that the end of an action is conceptually disconnected from its

moral worth, as though our ends were set independently of any consideration of our

maxims and their moral fitness, and we, only after the fact, checked to make sure those

ends were acceptable. Kant writes: 26 Engstrom, “Introduction” In The Critique of Practical Reason, xxii.

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One can think of the relation of end to duty in two ways: one can begin with the end and seek out the maxim of actions in conformity with duty or, one the other hand, one can begin with the maxim of actions in conformity with duty and seek out the end that is also a duty. –The doctrine of right takes the first way. … But ethics takes the opposite way. (MM 6: 382)

This distinction makes perfect sense. Furthermore, in his discussion of the difference

between ethics and the doctrine of right, Kant clarifies his previously held formalism:

[Ethics] cannot begin with ends that a human being may set for himself and in accordance with them prescribe the maxims he is to adopt, that is, his duty; for that would be to adopt maxims on empirical grounds, and such grounds yield no concept of duty…(MM 6:382)

If I am reading Kant correctly, the idea is that if we simply pursue an end that arises from

amoral inclination and merely check it with our internal moral censor to make sure it is

okay, we are not really acting virtuously at all. Our action is permissible, but it has no

genuine moral worth, and the will is not a good will, because we are not motivated by our

thought of moral goodness.27

Nevertheless, there is textual support in the second Critique for the Engstrom

reading, and so we are put in the position, when hoping to formulate a characterization of

Kantian moral theory as a whole, of choosing between two (or more) interpretations of

Kant on grounds other than textual fidelity. I offer a further reasons for my reading,

which is one that leaves off with calling Kantian moral theory a “formalism:” it does not

lead to treating the good will as merely an internal censor but allows the good will the

power to form ends and act on its own.

27 Herman refers to this distinction in her “Reasoning to Obligation,” 46.

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IV. The Good Will Wills The Good

Liberals have used the notion of formalism to argue that Kant’s ethics excludes a

substantive notion of the good and that the categorical imperative should be seen as

merely a gate-keeper, only letting out permissible inclinations. Instead, people may act

however they like, as long as their actions are constrained by the thought of their possible

universality, or the respect of the freedom of others. This reading of Kant reads his notion

of political freedom into the moral notion of autonomy. Even if we ignore everything

Kant has to say about virtue and the necessary ends of morality, it still seems as though

this is not a good reading of Kant and not a good moral theory, but a legal theory. Kant’s

distinction between right and virtue belies this approach.

I have shown the ways that Kantian moral theory helps to promote emotional

intelligence. This connection between Kantian moral theory and emotional intelligence

exists because Kant spent an immense amount of time thinking about psychology and

pedagogy, giving his lectures on anthropology coterminously with his lectures on moral

philosophy. If my theory of emotional intelligence has been convincing, we also have it

as reason to reject the liberal reading of Kantian moral theory. As a moral theory, the

liberal reading of Kant represents a lack of emotional intelligence. If the conscience is

merely a censor or gate-keeper of the inclinations and does not actively inform them, we

are stuck with a dichotomous theory of reason and emotion and no direction for

cultivating rational and moral emotions. Furthermore, emotional intelligence and

emotionally intelligent societies are themselves goods that should be furthered by

individuals. A moral theory that cannot promote any end over any other end cannot

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recognize this and cannot advocate for psychological health any more than for mental

disorder.

It is incomprehensible to me that Kant is faulted for not having an adequate moral

psychology. Kant’s moral theory is closely intertwined with his moral psychology, but it

is perhaps the case that Kant’s message is one that is difficult to hear, which is exactly his

point. Kant’s moral psychology focuses on the difficulty involved in choosing goodness

over selfishness. It proclaims that we should not be satisfied with our moral worth: we are

not good enough, we must keep striving. Kant’s emphasis on the difficulty in being good

is what leads him to consider inclination and passion in an exclusively negative light.

Kant defines virtue as a (free) self-constraint that is the result of a struggle with immoral

motivation (see MM 6: 379-382). It is not that Kant believes that humans are innately

evil, it is just that they are constantly tempted.

Kant’s primary motive for insisting that the principles of morality be pure is that

the correct reasons for them will then be grasped and they will be less subject to

corruption (G 6). He cordons off all thought of possible benefit in his establishment of the

basis of moral goodness because he believes that the consideration of personal benefit is

likely to corrupt the moral principle. The moral motive is essentially distinct from other

inclinations, whether they are selfish or not, and, being distinct, these two types of

motivation can and do come into conflict.28 Furthermore, being pure, the moral motive is

always weaker than any other benefit-based inclination that it comes up against it. In

other words, there is always some advantage on the side of the immoral motive. The

moral motive, on the other hand, stands alone: there is no reason to follow the moral law

28 Kant’s multiple examples of the contrast between duty and inclination help to show us the difference between these two motivations, but they do not give us a very good picture of the motive of duty or its content, and so they have been misunderstood as arguing that duty can only act when inclination is absent.

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except for the fact that it is the moral law.29 The harms and benefit alluded to by moral

reasoning are abstract: it does not matter what I stand to gain from the action now, but

what might happen if everyone acted this way. Really, it is not a question of benefit at all:

it is a question of principle. Being disconnected from benefit makes the moral motive

vulnerable to all sorts of rationalizations: we might object, “Oh, who really knows what’s

right and wrong anyway?” or “I’m not really hurting anybody,” and these rationalizations

will probably quiet the conscience. Most of the time, because we have been brought up in

lawful societies, our inclinations coincide with morality. This helps us to justify small

moral holidays when our inclinations pull us in the immoral direction.30 Kant writes that

it is this human tendency of rationalization that makes moral theory (the Critique of

Practical Reason, in particular) necessary (G 405).

We have seen that Kant’s use of the notion of form is conflicted. First, he uses the

term to refer to the form of the will, namely universality. This meaning is never far from

his mind, but he also introduces the distinction between formal and material principles,

which is based on the argument that determination by the thought of universality is

different from determination by means of a consideration of the matter of the will. If we

29 Galvin addresses Brandt’s criticism that Kant has no account of moral motivation, or that Kant requires that morality have no motivation. (This is also the criticism Hegel’s voices by associated Kant with the “beautiful soul” of the Phenomenology of Spirit.) Aside from pointing to the “feeling” of respect, as Galvin does, we must not be confused into thinking, perhaps with Kant, that Kant needs an account of moral motivation, except as a remark about moral psychology. Excluding “inclination” from the ground of the moral law does not entail that there is no “inclination” or “motive” or “reason” to act morally or even that the moral motive is necessarily weaker than other motives, although Kant worries that the latter is the case. Translating his theory into contemporary psychology and philosophy of action confuses the topic further because Kant was not interested in the question “how is action possible?” (although it may seem like his discussion of freedom should take such an interest, in fact, his arguments often hinge on the assumption that it is) but in the question “what is special about moral motivation?” and “what is the content of moral imperatives?” 30 See Robert Gressis’s discussion of Kant’s moral psychology in “How to Be Evil: The Moral Psychology of Immorality,” Rethinking Kant: Volume 1, ed. Pablo Muchnik (Cambridge Scholar Publishers, 2008).

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are to insist on making use of the notion of “formalism” when we describe Kant’s ethics,

we must remember that it cannot exclude a consideration of “ends” in ethics, since Kant

most certainly prescribes the necessary end of rational being. My argument has been that,

if we accept that the ends, whether morally necessary or not, determine the action

because they give it its content, there is no possible definition of formalism left that

leaves it distinct from universalism. Since Kantian formalism seems to be nothing more

than a restatement of universalism, can we not dispense with calling Kantian ethics a

“formalism” altogether?

In order to make sense of the references to form in Kant’s practical philosophy,

we must shift our attention away from the definition of form and toward the definition of

matter. The idea of “matter” is closely aligned with Kant’s understanding of the “lower”

faculties of desire, such as inclination.31 Nevertheless, as we have seen, the dichotomy

between lower and higher faculties does not make as much sense in the context of

practical philosophy as it does in theoretical philosophy because desire is not empirically

receptive in the way that sensibility is in theoretical philosophy. Furthermore, this

dichotomy seems to misstate the role that happiness plays in Kant’s moral philosophy.

The best way to read Kant’s comments on the “lower” faculty of desire are as an

expression of his worry about the seemingly endless ability of human psychology to

rationalize away moral requirements.

31 Beck writes, “ ‘Material’ here seems to be equated with ‘object of the lower faculty of desire,’ but the connotations of the two words are distinct, and the distinction is of great importance. ‘Material’ is also contrasted with ‘form’ and ‘formal,’ and Kant means here: All practical principles which figure as the cognitive component in volition because of their content, i.e., there reference to an object of desire, and not because of their form, are empirical…” Beck, Commentary, 96. I maintain that it is not possible to make any sense out of Kant’s notion of “material” other than to refer to “object of the lower faculty of desire” with the emphasis being on “lower.”

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The very first page of the Groundwork explains that moral theory is a material,

not a formal, science because its subject matter is the human will, which is “affected by

nature.” Louden discusses Kant’s division of moral theory into its pure and impure parts,

but also argues that Kant’s impure ethics are a necessary and important counterpart to

that which is most commonly associated with Kant.32 Taking stock of the necessary

moral ends and Kant’s comments about moral psychology that are aimed at helping us to

take up these ends may seem to blur the traditional Kantian distinction between the pure

and the impure, but since both halves are now recognized as vital, the distinction itself is

becoming less important.

32 Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics.

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CHAPTER VI

AUTONOMY AND PSYCHOLOGY1

Kant wrote that autonomy is the “supreme principle of ethics” (G 440). Following in step,

Kant scholars place much emphasis, both interpretive and creative, on the notion of autonomy.

Like his notion of purity and what is taken to be his “formalism,” Kant’s notion of autonomy is

thought to involve the exclusion of emotion from morality. Yet the notion of autonomy is more

popular and is taken to be one of the most important ideas in all of Kant’s thought. Beck argues

for the importance of the notion of autonomy in the first Critique, even though the word

“Autonomie” did not come into Kant’s vocabulary until after 1781; Beck holds that “autonomy

is a fundamental condition of both cognitive and practical activity.”2 Brandom draws a similar

parallel between alethic and deontic responsibility.3

Personally, I am in favor of a “back to basics” interpretation of autonomy. When Kant

first introduces the notion, in the end of the second section of the Groundwork, he defines it in

terms of universality. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see that Kant broaches the topic in the

first place in order to forge a connection between his moral theory and his theory of freedom, and

thus to effect a transition from the second to the third section of the Groundwork and to the

second Critique. It would seem that an interpretation of Kant’s notion of autonomy must

necessarily provide an interpretation of Kant’s theory of freedom; yet the reciprocity of the

1 The part of this chapter that discusses the Incorporation Thesis is taken, in part, from my article “The Merits and Deficiencies of Kant’s Incorporation Thesis as an Interpretation and Revision,” in Rethinking Kant: Volume 1, ed. Pablo Muchnik (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008). 2 Lewis White Beck, “What Have We Learned?” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. Allen Wood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 23. 3 Robert Brandom, “Animating Ideas of Idealism: A Semantic Sonata in Kant and Hegel, Lecture Two: Autonomy, Community, and Freedom,” presented at Colgate Philosophy Department Symposium, 2008.

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concepts of freedom and morality need not imply a mutual dependence. In this chapter, I provide

an interpretation of Kantian autonomy that is open to a variety of interpretations of Kantian

freedom—in fact, I am open to both compatibilist and incompatibilist interpretations—as long as

said interpretation does not overlook the fact that autonomy is first and foremost a moral notion.

The third section of the Groundwork is notoriously difficult to understand. Kant brings up

the question of the existence of human freedom, but then tells us that we must assume it. He then

again uses the specter of determinism to attempt to prove the validity of the categorical

imperative, but then concludes that such a proof is impossible. There are a number of logical and

philosophical problems with this series of argumentation, but in this chapter I focus on the

psychological problems with the version of autonomy it develops. Kant insinuates that

everything that lies outside of pure reason cannot be viewed as properly a part of the self at all.

Such a view of the self is psychologically unhealthy, and it erects a dangerous moral psychology.

It is best that we eschew these flights of argumentation and stick to the idea that autonomy can

be understood in terms of the other formulations of the categorical imperative.

I. The Principle of Autonomy and the Categorical Imperative

Kant introduces the idea of autonomy in the Groundwork after he has already given (at

least) three formulations of the categorical imperative. The idea of autonomy is related to the

third formulation (the Kingdom of Ends formula) because the latter introduces the idea of the

will as legislative and the former as self-legislative, i.e., both a sovereign and a subject. Kant

more fully discusses this new term, calling “the autonomy of the will” “the supreme principle of

ethics” (G440). It may seem strange that he gives us yet another principle of ethics, but if we pay

close attention to the text, we see that Kant is careful to introduce this new idea only as a

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restatement of the equivalence of the former three. While discussing the Kingdom of Ends, Kant

highlights the equation between the universal law formulation and the rational being formulation.

In affirming a law as valid for all rational beings, we affirm it as valid for ourselves as well as for

others, and in ensuring that we follow laws to which others, as rational beings, would assent, we

ensure that we are not treating them as a mere means, but also as ends in themselves (G 438).

The fullest expression of this idea then comes with the vision of a Kingdom of Ends, wherein

everyone is both a subject and a law-giver. From the confluence of these ideas, we can derive the

idea of autonomy, which is, at first, defined in terms of universality: “morality is the relation of

actions to the autonomy of the will , i.e., to the possible legislation of universal law by means of

the maxims of the will” (G 339).

It is strange that at this point Kant takes himself to be, once again, giving definitional

features of moral theory itself, defining terms like “duty” and “obligation” in terms of

“autonomy,” and he defines the “holy will” as one that is necessarily in accord with the laws of

autonomy. This way of explaining autonomy, as it refers to “the laws of autonomy” may strike

Kant interpreters as unusual because we normally think of autonomy as giving the law to oneself,

and so forget that it is not meant to refer to just any laws, but only universal, objective laws.

Kantian autonomy is often explained as the ability of the will to give a/the law to itself; perhaps

it is more textually accurate to explain it as the quality of the will whereby it is a law in itself.

Kant writes:

Autonomy of the will is the property that the will has of being a law to itself [dadurch derselbe… ihm selbst ein Gesetz ist] (independently of any property of the objects of volition). The principle of autonomy is this: always choose in such as way that in the same volition the maxims of the choice are at the same time present as universal law. (G 440)

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Kant goes on to define heteronomy as determination from “anywhere but in the fitness of its

maxims for its own legislation of universal laws, [such as in] the character of any of its

objects”(G 441).

As we discussed in the previous chapter, thinking of universality in terms of the

exclusion of a consideration of the effect of the action, or, in this case, “the character” of the

object, runs the risk of vacuity. Nevertheless, Kant does not make that same mistake here; he

writes,

for example, I ought to endeavor to promote the happiness of others, not as though its realization were any concern of mine (whether by immediate inclination or by any satisfaction indirectly gained through reason), but merely because a maxim which excludes it cannot be comprehended as a universal law in one and the same volition. (G 441)

This passage also allows us to quickly summarize Kant’s theory of emotion and the point of

chapter 3: feelings can be rational, and rational feelings play an important role in morality, but

feeling rational feelings should not be the goal of moral action. Proper moral motivation is

always the comprehension of the moral law and the action’s objective necessity. A moral feeling

is not problematic as an efficient cause of moral action, as respect is, since the feeling itself,

being rational, presupposes proper moral comprehension, but if a moral feeling is the final cause

of moral action, such as with the desire to do a good deed in order to feel good about oneself, the

moral action is cheapened and loses its moral worth. Of course, we do feel good about ourselves

when we do a good deed (this is moral self-esteem and a part of morally worthy happiness) but

that is not the reason that we do the good deed. That would be strange and would even

undermine the feeling itself.

As we have seen, in the second section of the Groundwork, autonomy refers to

universalism: “an absolutely good will, whose principle must be a categorical imperative, will

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therefore be indeterminate as regards all objects, and will contain merely the form of willing; and

indeed that form is autonomy”(G 444).4 In the third section of the Groundwork, Kant attempts to

use the notion of autonomy to address metaphysical freedom, which he apparently takes to be in

limbo, even after the first Critique’s hopeful agnosticism. He then uses the idea of freedom to

provide an argument for the reality of the categorical imperative. Since freedom and morality are

set up as “reciprocal concepts” it is unclear whether one is to be more basic and play a

supporting role or if the suggestion is that they are both equally uncertain. If both notions are

shaky, perhaps Kant hopes to prop them up against each other.

The general line of argument, which might be taken either as giving support for the

reality of freedom or the reality of the categorical imperative, runs thusly:

1. We think that we are free because we experience ourselves freely making choices.

2. To be free is to exercise pure reason because all other decisions are determined by

incentives.

3. So, if our choices are determined by incentives, and our natural tendency to pursue them,

they are not free.

4. The categorical imperative commands that we choose without reference to incentive;

therefore to be free is to follow the categorical imperative.

5. Therefore, we affirm the categorical imperative when we affirm the reality of our

freedom. Likewise, we affirm our freedom when we act morally.

Obviously, the term “freedom” is used differently in the first premise than in the second. In

eliding these two senses of freedom (and their corresponding notions of determinism), Kant is

also eliding between a general, prudential form of decision-making and pure reason. The first

4 We see this meaning of autonomy echoed in the preface to the Doctrine of Virtue: “If this distinction is not observed, if eudaimonism (the principle of happiness) is set up as the basic principle instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of the freedom of eternal lawgiving), the result is euthanasia (easy death) of all morals”(MM 6:378).

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premise refers to reason in general, or, perhaps, it does not refer to reason at all, but any kind of

relatively uncoerced choice; the second refers to pure reason. It is unclear whether or not we

normally assume that we are capable of making a choice without an incentive and, so, whether

the argument could work without an equivocation. Kant himself recognizes that the idea of

choosing without incentives is vacuous, and so he qualifies this idea by adding that there is a

special, moral incentive— respect for the moral law—that is different than other incentives

because it does not compromise our freedom. Hence it is unclear whether or not even Kant

thinks that we take ourselves to be capable of making a choice without any incentive.5

A weaker and, perhaps, better version of this argument runs: thinking of ourselves

as free makes us realize that we are autonomous and hence bound by the laws of morality

(G 453). This argument would be successful if we shared Kant’s view of natural

determinism and did not take freedom to refer to metaphysical freedom, but just

relatively uncoerced choices. Another possible argument here is that we have an interest

in affirming the categorical imperative and acting as it prescribes because in doing so we

are affirming, or proving, our freedom, or independence from selfish incentives. Of

course, Kant states that “all the laws that are inseparably bound up with freedom are valid

just as much as if the will of such a being could be declared to be free in itself for reasons

that are valid for theoretical philosophy”(G 448). “Such a being” refers to us: rational

beings with a will, “who cannot act in any way other than under the idea of freedom.”

This statement lends credence to the latter possibility, i.e., that we have an interest in

5 If, by “incentive” we mean a kind of payment, then the moral law cannot be an incentive, but if we mean a reason for doing something, then it surely is an incentive. It is relevant to note that Spinoza thought that clear and distinct ideas command assent, as well as corollary behaviors. In other words, having a reason for doing something was a mark of determinism for Spinoza, but here Kant assumes that there are some kinds are reasons that are non-deterministic. Nevertheless, Kant’s notion of autonomy certainly represents a heritage from Spinoza’s definition of freedom.

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using morality to prove freedom, although indirectly since this “idea of freedom”

formulation of the argument suggests a type of compatibilism whereby all of our actions

are free, because we must assume that they are, whether they are really determined or not.

Kant first expresses autonomy in terms of the unity of the different formulations

of the categorical imperative, but he would not introduce a new term for this unity if it

were not motivated by his need to re-address his theory of freedom. Autonomy is the link

that establishes the reciprocity between morality and freedom, as Kant remarks that they

are “reciprocal concepts” (G 450). In other words, it has one hand in Kant’s moral theory

and is defined in terms of the categorical imperatives, but it has the other hand in Kant’s

theory of freedom. This hand gestures toward a Spinozist idea of freedom as accordance

with one’s true, rational nature.

II. Autonomy and the “True Self”

Whatever the status of freedom, the argument of the third section does attempt to

connect impure reason, whether that means prudential reason or decision-making that is

coerced in some other way, and “alien causes”(fremder Ursachen). In other words, Kant

brings in the psychological distinction those things that are foreign (fremde) and those

things that are properly a part of one’s identity as a rational being. The very idea of

autonomy, of giving or being a law to oneself, implies a division within the self between

laws/impulses that are better suited to the self because the better express its true nature

and laws/impulses that are constraining, not freeing, because they do not express the true

nature of the self.

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In other words, Kant’s autonomy/heteronomy distinction runs along the lines of

the distinction between the categorical and hypothetical imperatives, but deeming action

according to hypothetical imperatives tantamount to determination by “foreign

influences” (G 448). Our interests, no matter how “rational” in the normal sense of the

term, are painted as foreign causes. My point in this chapter is simply that this

characterization is not true: our interests are a part of ourselves, and moral improvement

requires that we make this realization. Furthermore, rational self-legislation requires that

the process of reasoning be conscious. I do believe that such is Kant’s final word on the

subject, but it seems entirely too harsh to conclude that, if we are determined by

unconscious influences, that they are irrational and immoral. Rather, as I argued in

chapter 3, it seems that Kant would say that the unconscious can contain rational

directives that would become moral were they made explicit, but as unconscious they

remain amoral.

Kant’s notion of autonomy finds a philosophical predecessor in Spinoza’s

definition of freedom as that which follows from the nature of the self, i.e., reason, but

for Spinoza those things that appear not to follow from the nature of the self, viz., passive

emotions, really are a part of the self, just perceived inadequately. The goal for Spinoza is

to transform passive emotions into active emotions, or to realize the way that they are

“self-caused.” There is no such option for Kant, and the adoption of the idea that freedom

is the causality of reason leaves a rift between the rational and irrational parts of the self

that cannot be repaired.

It would certainly be worrisome if someone really did see herself in this way,

believing that her most refined reasoning capacities were under her control and the rest to

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be externally determined. It is one thing to regret one’s actions, it is quite another to not

see them as freely chosen actions at all. As we will discuss shortly, Kant scholars wish to

save Kant from this troubling picture of subjectivity by insisting that pragmatic reason is

a necessary part of healthy and even moral reason. There is definite merit to this line of

interpretation. Nevertheless, even if we were to redefine the limits of the autonomous self

and move the boundary further out so that it now includes both moral and pragmatic

reason, we would still be left with an unhealthy self-schisming. If we believe that all

natural instinct is an external force that acts on us, taking away our freedom, we have a

picture of the self in which there is an ineliminable, although compartmentalizable,

problem. Perhaps some people do, in fact feel this way about their bodies or about their

emotions. In fact, this picture of the self comes close to being the one assumed by

Goleman and LeDoux, with their assumption that emotions are innate limbic responses

that cannot be gotten rid of and can only be controlled. Others like Damasio and

Greenspan then rush in to defend emotions, arguing that they can be useful, all the while

still assuming that emotions are “responses,” and thereby more closely relating them to

the external world than to the subject’s proper self. Whether or not the thing that is to be

excluded from the self, that which causes heteronomous determination, is taken to be

necessarily a problem is not as psychologically relevant as the fact that some part of the

self is viewed as being alien in the first place. Of course, drawing the lines of the self has

and always will be in contention, but as long as the lines attempt to exclude “the

physical” or “the unconscious” they risk severing the self in two.

Of course, dichotomous theories of subjectivity are much more prevalent in the

history of philosophy than monisms. Allow me to briefly canvass some of the

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psychological problems of this way of thinking about the self. We might first approach

this topic through the lens of culpability since this is the issues about which Kant is

ostensibly most worried. Kant has constructed an interesting, and many would say

unsuccessful, narrative about moral blame. By creating the space of rational causality he

means to disallow the excuse that people can never be blamed for their actions because

there is always an efficient cause operative. Many have argued that this move leads him

to the conclusion that we are only free when we act morally and so still determined and

beyond blame when we act immorally.6 Many interpreters turn to what they call Kant’s

“incorporation thesis,” which will be more fully discussed shortly, to argue that Kant

believes that we always choose all of our actions and therefore can always be held

responsible for them. Aside from having other problematic philosophical implications,

the idea that we choose to follow our inclinations (in the normal sense of making a

choice, not in the Kantian sense of the noumenal choice of one’s character) does not seem

related to legal debates about culpability. Yet, the discourse of subjectivity that follows

from the notion of autonomy has the result of blaming parts of the self for immoral

choices while all the while letting “the true self” off the hook. If we are

“heteronomously” determined, we are left with the task of moral “damage control.” If

one simply tries to control one’s inclinations, it becomes difficult to reflect on one’s

actions, considering the relationship between pure and impure motivation.

We are reminded of a situation in which a friend apologizes for an offense, but

then argues that this way of acting is, for example, just part of her personality and that

she cannot do anything about it. An apology can only really be acceptable if it contains a

promise to change in the future—anything less seems like lip-service— and change is 6 See, for example, Henry Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 511-16.

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really only effected through understanding the internal causes that lead to the incident

and finding a way to alter them. For this reason apologies that promise too much are also

unacceptable. If the person says, “I’m sorry, I will never hurt your feelings again, I’m just

going to keep my big mouth shut from now on,” we know that this promise is not a

realistic consideration of the cause of the problem and hence does nothing to solve it. In

order to effect moral improvement, we must be able to come to understand the causes of

our actions. The idea that we are “heteronomously determined” precludes this

possibility.7 We are able to understand heteronomous causes, using the laws of cause and

effect, but the point is to change them. Of course, if we were not free to act differently,

there would be no point of doing moral theory to begin with, but the theory of autonomy

covers over the fact the choice to follow an incentive is still a choice, and hence not

qualitatively different from the autonomy of moral reason. In other words, moral

deliberation must concern itself intimately with heteronomy: these are not two parts of

the self, or two different faculties, but only two different choices.

The previous example points to another problem with the idea of autonomy: it

seems related to low self-esteem. As we discussed in chapter 4, it is not healthy to like

oneself regardless of the way that one acts. The opposite extreme, and one that similarly

Kant warns against as immoral, is irrational self-hatred. Yet, the theory of autonomy

developed in the third section of the Groundwork is a version of irrational self-hatred.

Even if one achieves a state of perfect control over one’s natural desires, a person who

ascribes to a Kantian notion of autonomy must still see these desires as problematic, and,

7 Another way to phrase this objection is in terms of what has been called Kant’s psychological hedonism: if Kant takes us to be naturally selfish and obsessed with the pursuit of pleasure, he should hold that moral improvement is impossible, and a moral theory that rules out the possibility of moral improvement seems to be caught in a performative contradiction.

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as Kant frequently writes, must wish to be free of them.8 Accepting that one’s natural

desires are an essential part of the self does not mean that we cannot believe that these

desires are never problematic or wrong. As we have discussed, healthy self-esteem

should be based on healthy self-criticism. Still, the idea of emotional intelligence, with its

suggestion that the emotions are themselves intelligent, encourages us to assume that our

inclinations are useful and important until proven otherwise. It does not encourage us to

act precipitously, but to devote careful attention to our desires, assuming that they contain

important, although perhaps hidden, information. Kant’s theory of autonomy, with its

implications of repression and control, encourages the opposite: to assume that the

desires are guilty of selfishness and immorality. Furthermore, the chance for them to be

proven innocent is not often explored. This unnecessary harshness toward our own

desires then encourages us to react with harshness to the emotional expressions of others

as well as the biological finitude of nature.9

III. Autonomy as Practical Reason

Although these criticisms of Kant’s theory of autonomy are new, the worry that

Kant has not given inclination and natural desire a fair shake is certainly not new. Recent

interpreters have tried to defend or revise Kantianism in light of this worry by playing up

the importance of prudential reasoning and hypothetical imperatives. In short, they

defend Kantian autonomy by embracing its elision between moral and prudential

8 On the other hand, see Religion, VI, 58, on the vanity and sin of wishing to be free from all inclination. 9 Kristeva makes this suggestion as it regards the unconscious in her Strangers to Ourselves. Julia Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

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reason.10 The problem with this line of interpretation is that it necessarily downplays the

importance of that which is specifically moral, the categorical imperative.

Herman’s recent article, “Reasoning to Obligation,” offers the most explicit statement of

the interpretation that fully embraces the elision between moral and prudential reason.11 Herman

argues that moral choices are the most rational choices and that immoral choices represent an

immature and incomplete form of reasoning. Herman has always been interested in showing that

moral decision-making is a more down-to-earth experience than people usually accuse Kant of

making it. Her first book, Morality as Rationality (in 1990) argues that the categorical imperative

and the idea of a hypothetical imperative both offer rules for good reasoning. Her later The

Practice of Moral Judgment gains considerable ground in moving away from a deontological,

rights-based understanding of Kantian moral theory and toward accepting that Kant has a theory

of good willing and virtue.12 Nevertheless, collapsing moral and prudential reasoning is not the

right interpretative strategy. First, it risks sending us back to a libertarian reading of Kant

whereby moral reasoning is a process of justifying the abrogation of one person’s freedom for

the sake of another through a calculus of weighing freedoms. Second, it perhaps confuses a

phenomenological relationship, to which it is valuable to gesture, with a logical relationship.

Third, and most importantly, it sucks the life breath out of Kantian moral theory.13 It necessarily

leads to the attempt to translate that which is good in itself into that which is good for something

or somebody. It threatens to make Kant over as a Utilitarian. We have already seen that the third

section of the Groundwork opens the door to such an interpretation because Kant himself relies 10 Please see my “Kant’s Occasional—and the Ever-Popular—Elision Between Moral and Practical Reason” (under revision). 11 Barbara Herman, “Reasoning to Obligation,” Inquiry 49, no. 1 (2006): 44-61. 12 Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). See especially chapter 10. 13 Meerbote makes this same criticism of Irwin’s Green-inspired reading of Kant. See Irwin, Terence, “Morality and Personality: Kant and Green” and Meerbote, Ralf, “Kant on Freedom and the Rational and Morally Good Will” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, Allen W. Wood (ed.) (New York: Cornell University Press, 1984).

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on such an elision in his argument for the validity of the categorical imperative, but I see no

reason for following Kant in his confusion.

The move to subtly (or explicitly, in the case of Herman) ignore Kant’s distinction

between moral and prudential reasoning, as well as the tendency to interpret Kantian freedom in

a more prosaic sense is rather popular. Along with this comes the most permissive interpretation

of Kantian autonomy, as giving a law, any law, to oneself.14 Frequently, such an interpretation

draws from, what Allison, in his Kant’s Theory of Freedom (also published in 1990), calls,

Kant’s “Incorporation Thesis.” This name refers to a passage from the Religion essay, wherein

Kant argues that “an incentive can determine the will to an action only insofar as the individual

has incorporated it into his maxim” (R 6:24, emphasis mine).15 The idea is that inclinations in

themselves cannot determine the will, but we must first choose to act on them. Therefore,

immoral acts are not caused by natural inclinations: they are caused by our choice to follow

those inclinations. Allison argues that inclinations should be seen as motives, not causes, because

they do not, as he puts it, “motivate by themselves… but rather [only] as being taken as reasons

and incorporated into maxims.”16 Allison rightly points out that “among the major consequences

of the Incorporation Thesis … is the recognition that even heteronomous or non-morally based

actions are free for Kant in an incompatibilist sense.”17 This consequence is surprising because

the opposite is often assumed: Kantian freedom is thought to apply only to autonomous acts, i.e.,

14 Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Paul Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 15 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 40. The German text uses the verb aufnehmen, which is translated as “to incorporate,” but could easily be translated by a verb such as “to accept,” which goes further in overcoming dualism. 16 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 51. This terminology is Allison’s, not Kant’s: in the Lectures on Ethics Kant distinguishes between objective and subjective motives (motivum subjecte movens and motivum objecte movens) and uses the term Motiv to refer generally to all kinds of grounds of action. See J. MacMurray’s introduction to Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Louis Infield (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). Kant also uses the term “Motiv” in a way contrary to this distinction at G 450. 17 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 6.

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ones that conform to the categorical imperative. Instead, Allison argues that “both moral and

pragmatic or prudential imperatives indicate a causality of reason.”18

The Incorporation Thesis points to a partial willingness on Kant’s part to do exactly what

the name describes: to incorporate inclination with rationality by hypothesizing a unified

decision-maker who must experience all parts of the self. It functions in contemporary

scholarship to shift interpretive focus away from Kant’s formalism and the corollary

understanding of freedom in terms of autonomy, with all of the psychological problems that I

have suggested, toward a redefinition of freedom that takes all actions to be free. The move

toward a more prosaic understanding of freedom is becoming popular in Kant scholarship. Many

wish to downplay the idea that freedom is a special property of certain actions that can be

assumed from our capacity to choose against or without incentives. Guyer makes use of the

Incorporation Thesis in his Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, in which he argues that

Kant’s notion of the Highest Good ought to be seen as the goal of moral action and that Kant

believes that freedom, in the general political sense, is necessary for the happiness prescribed by

the notion of the Highest Good. Guyer argues that Kant assigns absolute value to freedom,

understood in this familiar way, and that the value of personal freedom grounds the legitimacy of

the categorical imperative. In addition to adopting the more general notion of freedom implied

by the Incorporation Thesis, Guyer makes use of Allison’s formulation of the Incorporation

Thesis explicitly to support his idea that, for Kant, morality is meant to serve morally worthy

happiness. The Incorporation Thesis is necessary for this end because it extricates Guyer from

the objection that Kant believes that happiness, the object of inclination, is inimical to morality,

the object of freedom. Instead, he holds that inclinations are not immoral per se, just as happiness

18 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 35.

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is not in conflict with morality, but that the natural goal of happiness is very much compatible

with morality, especially since both require the proper use of reason for their attainment.

Korsgaard also expands the scope of freedom to include all choices. One overriding

theme of her Creating the Kingdom of Ends is the idea that humans “confer value on the objects

of” their “rational choice” and that this fact about the origin of value grounds the status of

humans as “ends in themselves.”19 She similarly draws from the Religion essay to argue that all

choices are free actions.20 Guyer and Korsgaard both hope to show that, for Kant, morality

requires harmonizing inclination with moral ends, instead of totally extirpating inclination from

decision-making, as some critics fear. The Incorporation Thesis helps in this regard by relieving

inclination from being the cause of immorality, as the account of heteronomy suggests, and by

showing that reason always adjudicates the inclinations and therefore can do so in a way that is

both conducive to morality and conducive to happiness.

This elision has the effect of downplaying the importance of the categorical imperative

for Kantian morality. In his attempt to show that the Groundwork demonstrates the Incorporation

Thesis’s notion of practical agency, Allison agrees with Sidgwick’s interpretation of

universalizability as a test for rationality.21 Allison then identifies the idea of a universal law with

the idea of a practical law, and finally conjoins the notion of the categorical imperative with the

idea of a practical law in general.22 This conclusion follows from the substitution of rational

agency for moral agency. Allison appears to recognize the distinction between rationality and

19 Korsgaard, Kingdom, ix. 20 In her chapter 6, Korsgaard develops her argument that theoretical knowledge of freedom is neither necessary for action not for culpability by pointing out that freedom does not make an action moral, but that morality makes us free. This acknowledgement would seem to work against her general emphasis on freedom as the origin of value, but she does not consider this point in that context (176-183). 21 Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics. 22 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 212.

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morality, but he then collapses it again by defining transcendental freedom as the capacity to

choose based on a higher-level maxim, not the higher-level moral maxim.23

In order to understand this interpretive strategy, it is important to be familiar with the

relevant discussion from the Religion essay and the reason that it lends itself to such an

interpretation. Only in the Religion essay does normal rational choice become an example of

moral choice, because Kant is there trying to show that humans can freely choose to be either

evil or good. Still, the very specific type of choice described therein, which is something like

religious predetermination or a conversion experience made possible by Grace, is not analogous

to all choices, nor analogous to choosing autonomously, and therefore cannot be used to support

the model of normal decision-making the Incorporation Thesis wishes to erect.

The title of the Religion essay leads one to believe that it will offer an elaboration of

Kant’s argument that morality leads to a very specific type of religion and a description of such a

purely moral or rational religion. We are familiar with this idea from the second Critique,

wherein Kant argues that belief in the Christian god is a necessary part of morality. In a sense,

then, the title of the Religion essay is misleading: in fact, since Kant had already described

rational religion in a couple of his other works, the argument that morality requires rational

religion is largely assumed and relegated to footnotes. Instead, as Kant mentions in the preface to

the second edition, the goal of the work is to unify reason and scripture: Kant analyzes particular

ideas from Christian scripture and shows that they lead back to common sense. This explains the

troubling fact that Kant begins his discussion with many religious assumptions that we do not see

in his other writings, and it warns us to take the theological ideas Kant eventually reaches with a

grain of salt. For example, the first section begins with the idea that humans are innately evil, but

then, while keeping to the expression, Kant explains that this trait only amounts to the potential 23 Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 208.

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for evil, though he continues to assume that humans are in some sense born evil and must

undergo a conversion.24 In this work Kant address many religious ideas, such as heaven and hell,

the fall, a conversion experience, grace, and church participation.25

In the first section, in the context of discussing whether or not humans are innately evil,

Kant argues that immorality is caused by the subject’s free choice, “for otherwise the use or

abuse of the human being’s power of choice with respect to the moral law could not be imputed

to him, nor could the good or evil in him be called ‘moral’”(R 6:21). Kant specifically states that

inclinations and natural impulses cannot be seen as the ground of evil. According to this

argument, evil is not caused by natural inclination; rather, evil is a result of the choice to value

the satisfaction of inclination over compliance with the moral law. He explains the difference

between good and evil characters with reference to the choice of a meta-maxim: the maxim

either to follow the moral law in everything, or to follow inclination in everything.26 The main

goal of this part of the essay is to show that evil is not the result of nature, nor is good the result

of divine dispensation, but that humans are individually responsible for their moral worth.

Therefore, the proper truth issuing from the idea that humans are innately evil must involve the

24 We can see Kant distancing himself from the original scriptural idea of innate evil with his attribution of the idea to the “rigorists.” Allison’s statement that Kant identifies himself as a rigorist is wrong. Instead, Kant argues that one must be a rigorist when considering morality as a pure idea and one must be a “latitudinarian,” or one who affirms that humans are neither all good or all bad, when one considers morality from the point of view of human behavior (Rel. 6:25). 25 There is no reason to think that Kant is straightforwardly advancing any of these religious positions. In the case of a religious conversion experience, which implies, as does the choice of a meta-maxim that we shall examine shortly, that people are either all good or all bad, we know from Kant’s other works that he explicitly rejects this essentialism along with the idea that the task of morality could be completed in one fell swoop, or at all. On the contrary, G. Felicitas Munzel accepts this account of a singular, resolute choice in his account of Kantian moral character, in G. Felicitas Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character: The “Critical” Link of Morality, Anthropology, and Reflective Judgment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 26 Allison elaborates on the idea of choosing a meta-maxim and assimilates it to the idea that the practical agent subsumes inclinations under practical rules or maxims just as the understanding subsumes sensibility under the categories of the understanding. Therefore, he makes the free practical agent is an analog to the subject of the transcendental unity of apperception: “just as it must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all my representations in order for them to be ‘mine’… it must be possible for the ‘I take’ to accompany all my inclinations if they are to be mine qua rational agent, that is, if they are to provide motives or reasons for acting.”

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possibility for choice of the impure maxim, so that, when we accept theological notions, we grant

humans the capacity to choose the pure and good maxim (in a conversion experience) and thus

hold them responsible for their moral behaviors.

The choice of a good or evil character described in the Religion essay is in no way

analogous to normal decision-making. It involves the choice whether or not to follow the moral

law in everything; it is a meta-choice that happens once or twice in a person’s life. Kant

insinuates that it happens at or before birth and then during a conversion. Also, this choice is not

based on reasons. It is a choice about the relative value of reasons, and, for that reason, Kant

assumes that it cannot itself be based on reasons. Nor can we be aware of the choice: we can

never know for sure whether we are of the pure or impure character type. Kant states that,

although the conversion is a spontaneous revolution, the individual experiences it as a gradual

change and a result of his constant striving (Rel. 6:48).

There is clearly interpretive merit to warding off the conclusion that all immoral choices

are determined. Nevertheless, even within the Religion essay, Kant distances himself from the

idea that all actions are freely chosen. After the introduction, Kant turns to a discussion of the

“original predisposition to good in human nature” and argues that we are subject to a three-fold

determination: as animals, as humans, and as persons (Rel. 6:26). Kant describes the first as

determination without reason; the second requires rationality, but it is still rationality based on

inclination, or prudential reasoning; and the third is determination by respect for the moral law.

Kant continues to describe our inclinational or animalistic nature as arational. Here again Kant

makes a distinction between rational and prudential reason, as well as animalistic determination,

and does no re-assert that the ways that we are determined because we are human presuppose a

rational choice. Contrary to the Incorporation Thesis, he does not here argue that inclination

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needs the motivating force of reason in order to cause behavior. Then, in a move that also works

against the Incorporation Thesis, Kant reassigns the ability to motivate to purely moral, not

broadly practical reason: in a footnote, Kant defends the separation between the second and the

third form of determination (prudential and moral) by stating that “from the fact that a being has

reason does not at all follow that … this reason contains a faculty of determining the power of

choice unconditionally, and hence to be ‘practical’ on its own” (Rel. 6:26, 120). This sentence

implies that the second kind of determination uses reason but is ultimately caused by inclination

and does not reach the level of autonomous moral choice, which is the only kind of cause for

action that operates independently of inclination. Kant writes “Every propensity is either

physical, i.e. it pertains to a human’s power of choice as a natural being; or moral, i.e., it pertains

to a human’s power of choice as a moral being,” and he goes on to explain that only the latter is

free (Rel. 6:31).

Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, which was published after the

Religion essay, contains a similar discussion of innate evil. There Kant argues that humans are

innately good in so far as they have a natural sense of the moral law, but innately evil as they

naturally desire to choose the satisfaction of their selfish inclinations above following the moral

law. He writes:

Here the question is whether man is good by nature or bad by nature, or whether by nature he is equally susceptible to one or the other, depending upon which guiding hand he happens to fall into (cereus in vitium flecti etc.); in this last instance the species itself would have no character. But this last instance is contradictory in itself because a being endowed with the faculty of practical reason and with consciousness of free-will (a person) sees himself in this consciousness, even in the midst of the darkest imaginings, subject to a moral law and to the feeling (which is then called moral feeling) that he is treated justly or unjustly and that he is treating others justly or unjustly. This is the intelligible character of humanity as such, and thus far man is good (by nature) according to his inborn gift. But experience also shows that in man there is an inclination to desire actively what is unlawful. This is the inclination to evil which arises

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unavoidably and as soon as man begins to make use of his freedom. Consequently the inclination to evil can be regarded as innate. Hence, according to his sensible character, man must be judged as being evil (by nature). This is not contradictory when we are talking about the character of the species because it can be assumed that the species’ natural destiny consists in continual progress toward the better (A 324).

Note that here, Kant uses the term “freedom” to refer to the freedom to choose evil. Kant goes on

to write that man is destined to overcome his animalistic selfishness so that the species can

achieve universalism:

no matter how great his animalistic inclination may be to abandon himself passively to the enticements of ease and comfort, which he calls happiness, he is still destined to make himself worthy of humanity by actively struggling with the obstacles that cling to him because of the crudity of his nature. (A 325)

As with many of Kant’s works, the Anthropology gives us evidence in support of the

Incorporation Thesis, as when Kant remarks that the experience of pleasure always involves the

simultaneous evaluation of that pleasure (A §64), and evidence to deny it, as when Kant writes,

in direct contradiction to the Religion essay’s account of choosing a meta-maxim, “man never

sanctions the evil in himself, and so there is actually no evil coming from principles, but only

from the forsaking of them” (A 293).

Although the Religion essay has gained a privileged status as evidence that Kant changed

his mind and improved his moral theory late in his career, this special status is entirely

unwarranted. The Religion essay is not unique as a location for this kind of back and forth

between the idea that humans are free by virtue of their humanity and the idea that inclination is

a cause that usurps true freedom. The published version of Kant’s lectures on ethics, which is

based on lectures given earlier in his career, displays this same conflict. Even in Kant’s early

thought we can see the tension between his desire to say that all human action is free and his

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need to argue that only those actions that express moral necessity are truly free.27 Kant makes the

same argument in the Lectures as he does in the Religion essay: “because his will is free no man

can be pathologically compelled. The human will is an arbitrium liberum in that it is not

determined by stimuli, but the animal will is an arbitrium brutum, and not liberum, because it

can be determined per stimulos”(L 28).28 Furthermore, “all moral evil springs from freedom;

otherwise it would not be moral evil. However prone by nature we may be to evil actions, the

latter have their source in our freedom”(L 67). Then, only a short while later, we see Kant offer

the same formulation, but this time substituting the Groundwork’s theory of freedom. When

Kant begins, “man alone is free; his actions are not regulated by any such subjectively

necessitating principle; if they were he would not be free,” it looks as though he is articulating

the Incorporation Thesis again, but he continues:

And what then? If the freedom of man were not kept within bounds by objective rules, the result would be the completest savage disorder. There would be no certainty that man would not use his powers to destroy himself, his fellows and the whole of nature”(L 122).

This is not a picture of man as unfree, but of man as immoral. Kant contrasts freedom understood

as the absence of lawfulness, which he describes above as the height of immorality and de facto

lack of freedom, with the understanding of freedom as moral lawfulness. He advances an early

version of the categorical imperative that expresses this identification: “Let thy procedure be

such that in all thine actions regularity prevails. What does this restraint imply when applied to

the individual? That he should not follow his inclinations.” To follow one’s inclinations is not

only immoral but unfree: “he who subjects his person to his inclinations, acts contrary to the 27 The Lectures on Ethics are unique because they do not display the same insistence on incompatibilism that we see in the first and second Critiques and the Groundwork. Instead, Kant argues that all actions are determined, but some are determined in a way that makes us free: “in the case of a free being an action can be necessary—and necessary in the highest possible degree—and yet it need not conflict with freedom”(L 28). Kant states “every obligation is either one of duty or one of compulsion”(L 15). 28 Even this distinction is not unequivocal since, in the previous sentence, Kant states that prudential necessitation is determination per stimulos.

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ends of humanity, for as a free being he must not be subjected to inclinations, but ought to

determine them in the exercise of his freedom”(L 122). Therefore, for Kant, in at least one sense,

humans can be and are determined by their inclinations and this determination yields both

immorality and the lack of the freedom. In the terminology of the Lectures, sensibility can and

does overpower the understanding (L 45), and the more a man is compelled pathologically the

less he is free (L 29).

Contrary to the Incorporation Thesis, Kant’s texts do not unequivocally support the

conclusion that Kantian moral theory does not take inclination to be in itself corrosive to

morality and freedom. “Inclination” (Neigung) remains the bad guy of Kantian moral theory, but

as we saw from chapter 3, Kant’s condemnation of inclination need not spill over into a

condemnation of feeling, and, from chapter 5, a consideration of the ends of morality, such as the

happiness of others and our own self-perfection.

Still, Kant’s ambiguity and ambivalence about freedom runs deep. Just as in the third

section of the Groundwork, Kant often conflates two senses of freedom: they are, what in the

Lectures he calls the arbitrium liberum, which, as we just saw, can be dangerous, and the

freedom we gain from subjecting our wills to the moral law.

This distinction is what many commentators refer to as the Wille/Willkür distinction.

Many believe that Kant introduced this distinction late in his writings, with the Religion essay

and the Metaphysics of Morals, specifically to account for the freedom of evil action.29 As we

have just seen, however, Kant was aware of this problem from his first professional engagement

with ethics. Kant uses the term Willkür to refer to the capacity of the subject for free choice, in

the prosaic sense of freedom (willkürlich means “arbitrary” and so the Willkür, or free will, is

29 Allison discusses this mode of interpretation and rejects it. He does not need to take this route of deflating the importance of autonomy for Kantian philosophy because he has already defined autonomy as “self-determination” in the more general sense entailed by the Incorporation Thesis; Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 95-96.

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analogous to the arbitrium liberum). Wille denotes freedom in the robust, noumenal sense.30

Willkür is often referred to as “practical freedom” by commentators, but this may be confusing

because it is not the freedom of pure practical reason, rather freedom in a prosaic, practical

sense, as opposed to a metaphysical or noumenal sense. Wille, on the other hand, can be called

“moral freedom.”

When Kant describes the choice of a meta-maxim in the Religion essay he usually uses

the term Wille, but he occasionally refers to Willkür, for example in the statement: “a propensity

to evil can only attach to the moral faculty of choice (Willkür)”(Rel. 6:31). Kant must refer to

Willkür here because he describes moral choice with an analogy to normal decision-making in

order to account for its freedom. This overlap demonstrates exactly the reason that Religion

essay can be used by those who wish to highlight the role of Willkür in Kant’s moral philosophy

and downplay the role of the Wille.

V. Autonomy Without Freedom

Perhaps it is preferable not to call moral freedom “freedom” at all and to just say that

moral decisions are better than merely prudential decisions. The term “freedom” seems to be

operating only as an honorific in this sense anyway. In this way, the Kantian notion of autonomy

is like Aristotle’s notion of human flourishing: it is a vision of that which is most properly and

excellently human. Moral reasoning is “free,” for Kant, and the highest expression of freedom,

because it expresses our essence as rational beings, through which we are united in a group with

all people; it is that through which we really feel free. When Kant is worried about pure reason’s

ability to be practical, he is not so much worried about the possibility of action in general, but

30 George Di Giovanni addresses the issue of the relationship between the two notions in terms of the response of German Idealism to Kantianism in his “The First Twenty Years of Critique: The Spinoza Connection,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

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about disproving Hume’s statement that reason is and should be the slave of the passions.

Heteronomy is a problem not because it entails that we are metaphysically determined, but

because it is without intrinsic value. Kant’s goal is to show that happiness cannot have value

without morality. Kant’s argument that nothing is good in itself except for a good will is like

Aristotle’s argument that the good life is not the life devoted to money-making or fame: our lives

can only have the mere semblance of worth if they are not based on morality.

To achieve an emotionally intelligent version of Kantian autonomy, we would merely

need to free it from the question of freedom. If we take away the idea of heteronomy as the

contrary to autonomy, the opposite of autonomy would not be external determination; it would

simply be that one cannot fully affirm one’s choice. We can retain the idea of conscious and

moral affirmation without denying that selfishness and the unconscious are truly a part of the

self, and necessarily so. Recognizing our inclinations, or emotions, or desires, or whatever seems

to be giving us trouble, as still a very real part of the self makes room for intimately and

sensitively examining this part of the self with the assumption that it contains the possibility for

reconciliation as well as genuine insight.

As we have seen, the Incorporation Thesis implies that the extra step of using autonomy

to define freedom is unnecessary, since we can already state that all of our actions are free on

separate grounds, by virtue of being caused by prudential reason and not directly by inclination.

Kant says as much in the Groundwork: “[Man] does not even hold himself responsible for these

inclinations and impulses and attribute them to him proper self (i.e., his will), though he does

impute to his will the indulgence which he may grant them when he permits them to influence

his maxims to the detriment of the rational laws of the will”(G 457-458). In my mind, the most

important thing about Kant’s discussion of freedom in his practical philosophy is the

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performance of praising morality: autonomy must be seen as necessarily referring to universality

as well as subordinating one’s subjective ends to morality. As long as we keep the categorical

imperative clear, it does not really matter how we sort out Kant’s confusing remarks about

freedom. Yet, as we saw from the discussion of the Incorporation Thesis, many are interested in

using what they take to be Kant’s theory of freedom in order to subtly make over his moral

theory.

Other than praising moral decision-making as that which is most excellently human,

interpretations of Kantian freedom seem to merely involve extricating him from it. Even noting

the existence of the Willkür, it does not seem that Kant has solved his own problem of

determinism. We must not forget that Kant sets up two different problems of determinism: the

first comes from his theory of temporality; the second comes from his psychological hedonism.

Both problems can be solved by means of the Religion essay’s account of predetermining one’s

life Gesinnung, but this “solution” cannot expand to fit any account of phenomenological

decision-making. Neither worry should affect the ability to hold people morally responsible,

since, as Kant notes in the Groundwork, such is an assumption that we make and will continue to

make whether or not we have consulted philosophy.

Kant never gives us a good argument that either moral or practical freedom is

metaphysically free.31 (By “metaphysical freedom” I mean the spontaneous, i.e., uncaused,

starting of a causal chain.) The third section of the Groundwork seems to suggest that Kant

believes that autonomy is the cure to determinism. Nevertheless, maybe physical determinism is

31 Allison describes the typical problem involved in accepting Kant’s notion of freedom thusly: “either freedom is located in some timeless noumenal realm, in which case it may be reconciled with the causality of nature, but only at the cost of making the concept both virtually unintelligible and irrelevant to the understanding of human agency, or, alternatively, freedom is thought to make a difference in the world, in which case both the notion of its timeless, noumenal status and the unrestricted scope within nature of the causal principle must be abandoned” (Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, 2).

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not the worry on Kant’s mind. In the first Critique, Kant explains that all experience is subject

the laws of cause and effect, or, in other words, determined. Of course, internal and external

experience are determined in different ways. In arguing against the reality of the will, Spinoza

gives an argument for rational determinism that makes use of the premise that clear and distinct

ideas command our assent. In commanding assent, they determine our subsequent thinking and

behavior. Ideas, not the free will, determine our behavior, he argues. In the first Critique Kant is

concerned about protecting the possible existence of the free will, and he posits a “noumenon”

beyond experience. He is sure to note that this “thing-in-itself” underlies both external and

internal experience,” opening up the possibility that we might be freed from both physical and

rational determinism.

Nevertheless, Kant never explicitly voices the worry about rational determinism. His

theory of autonomy would not entail a solution to this problem since it asserts that it is exactly

through determination by pure reason that we become free. It might be correct to say that Kant

abandons the Spinozist notion of rational determinism. Although, if this is the case, it is only

through a theory of freedom that closely resembles compatibilist Spinoza’s theory of freedom, as

that which is self-caused and promotes self-preservation, which for Spinoza, is closely aligned

with pure intuition/reason. If it is true that Kant exchanges his worry about rational determinism

for a theory of rational freedom, then his only worries left would concern physical determinism

and a Spinozist pychchological hedonism.

Support for this line of interpretation might come from the post-first Critique attempts at

solving the problem of physical determinism. Kant twice suggests Spinozist solutions. In the first

Critique, the “thing-in-itself” is called a “noumenon” because it is not, in principle, an object of

experience, but can only be thought. Yet, in his practical philosophy, Kant employs the term

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“noumenon” in conjunction with his idea of the noumenal, or purely rational, self. Kant later

suggests that there might be an underlying unity between phenomena and noumena. Of course,

Spinoza suggests exactly this: that the order of ideas matches the order of events in the world.

Suggesting that there might be a deeper unity between phenomena and noumena undermines the

original intention behind postulating the noumenon in the first place, but it does offer a

competing solution to physical determinism. If Nature is in sympathy with our purposes, and we

can determine ourselves rationally, than physical determinism loses its sting. Kant’s arguments

that we can see design in Nature and History similarly suggest that he moves closer to monism.

Nevertheless, with this monism we would be physically determined and yet rationally free

because we are free to promote our own rational nature. As Wood notes, this amounts to

compatibilism, and, for these additional reasons, Kant seems to be fine with it.32

Of course, Kant is not fine with Spinoza. One problem with speculating about Spinozist

philosophical heritage is that it cannot be proved. Because he was a heretic, scholars in Christian

Europe would not acknowledge his influence. Furthermore, Spinoza believes that reason is

always life-promoting; Kant rejects this naturalism and holds that pragmatic reason is hedonistic,

but pure reason is not. Maintaining a more Christian notion of God as moral and spiritual being,

it would have been easy for Kant to accept that pure reason enjoys the same pre-established

harmony with nature as pragmatic reason does.

Of course, arguing that Kant is part-Spinozist in a dissertation about emotion certainly

yields the requirement of comment on possible Spinozist influence on Kant’s theory of emotion.

Recalling chapter 3: it does not seem that there is much. Kant’s theory of emotion was likely

formed pre-critically, and therefore long before his theory of autonomy and his flights of

32 Allen Wood, “Kant’s Compatibilism,” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. Allen Wood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).

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monism. A Spinozist influence might explain this theory of the unconscious, as well as, more

importantly, his psychological hedonism and motivate his response to it. Of course, a cognitive

theory of emotion has monist leanings, and so we might argue that Kant had early sympathies in

this regard. Nevertheless, his theory of emotion seems to have more in common with the Stoics

and seems to be more caused by his own vehement rejection of moral sense theory and Hume’s

assertion that reason is and should be always the slave of the passions.

On the other hand, we might also read Kant as an incompatibilist. Allison, in his Kant’s

Transcendental Idealism, argues that the fact that all experience is subject to the category of

causality does not force us to conclude that Nature really is fully determined. Allison calls the

thought of “the complete explicability and predictability of humans actions” “merely a regulative

Idea.”33 This distinction is similar to the distinction between Science assuming that it can find the

causal laws for everything and Science actually finding causal laws for everything (or everything

that it covers, as with Newtonian mechanics). This might be helpful for us, but I nevertheless

think there is plenty of reason to assume that Kant was taking the mechanical model as his model

for Nature. In the third section of the Groundwork, Kant makes a connection between the

formality of the moral will (as it is without content) and the rarified source of pure reason that

transcends empirical experience:

This thought [of oneself as free from sensible determination] certainly involves the idea of an order and legislation different from that of the mechanism of nature which applies to the world of sense; and it makes necessary the concept of an intelligible world (i.e., the whole of rational beings as things in themselves). But it makes not the slightest claim to anything more than to think of such a world as regards merely its formal condition… (G 458)

33 Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 326. One should consult this chapter, “Between Cosmology and Autonomy,” for more of discussion about the relationship between determinism and autonomy as Kant portrays it in the first Critique.

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This interpretation also helps explain Kant’s constant reminder that we can never know for sure

whether or not our motives were pure: we cannot have this knowledge because we cannot be (or

can barely be) conscious of pure motives.

As we can see, there are compelling reasons for a variety of different interpretations of

Kantian freedom. Returning to my main argument, the best possible revision to Kant’s theory of

autonomy is to completely divorce it from the question of metaphysical freedom. For some

reason, when this tie remains un-severed it continually leads to ignoring the fact that autonomy is

first and foremost a moral notion. Irwin’s Greenian interpretation is a good example of this

tendency: he starts out by making the distinction between moral and metaphysical freedom,

arguing that the former is itself sufficient as an account of freedom, and, yet again, moral

freedom is made over into an amoral notion. Green’s account of morality in terms of rational

self-satisfaction is nevertheless very attractive because it postulates an internal, developmental

connection between rational self-realization and impartiality. His account overlaps in an

interesting way with our earlier discussion of emotional intelligence, which was shown to

involve impartiality and self-awareness. Revisiting this topic prompts us to revisit the

relationship between emotional intelligence and morality. Just as emotional intelligence

expresses psychological well-being, or a unified and higher notion of happiness, Green hopes to

show that Kant is interested in the intersection between morality and self-satisfaction. If we take

self-satisfaction to be an essentially normative notion, then it is very much like Kant’s notion of

autonomy. Still, bringing “self-satisfaction” into morality should not entail overturning the

distinction between the moral and the prudential, as Green believes that it does.34

34 Green argues that Kantian freedom should be understood in terms of long-term goals and rational self-consciousness. T. H. Green, Collected Works, ed. R. L. Nettleship (London, 1885-88), 117. Irwin restates this sentiment in terms of choice that favors one’s “fairly stable desires and aims”; Irwin, “Morality and Personality,” 35.

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At this point, it is most important that we hold onto the fact that autonomy is a moral

notion. Should we care about others because they are a means for gaining “self-realization”? No.

We should care about others because it is the right thing to do. More cautious consideration of

the link between self-realization and impartiality is necessary to prevent collapsing Kantianism

into a sophisticated Utilitarianism.

Does this cautious consideration require some degree of mysticism, or a retreat into

naturalism? It is difficult to say why or how morality and psychological health are related, why

morality expresses our “best self,” but it still seems to be the case. Similarly, literature on the

practical application of emotional intelligence is largely indistinguishable from a commentary of

the moral and social ills of violence, abuse, disrespect, and addiction. Kant is a good enough

psychologist (or, as he would say, anthropologist) to see the obvious, but we contemporary moral

theorists fall into the trap of ignoring psychology and denying that this connection exists just

because we do not know how to explain it. Kant holds that the moral law is a (natural) “fact of

reason.”35 This assertion may strike us as horribly unphilosophical, and so it is often ignored, and

then Kant’s moral theory is ripped from the psychological context in which it belongs.

In the same vein as those who promote the Incorporation Thesis, Irwin takes as a point for Green’s interpretation that it revises Kant’s distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. 35 Meerbote makes this point in his commentary on Irwin’s article; Meerbote, “Kant on Freedom,” 72.

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